Serendipity in Porto….

A full day that ended up just as it should, a truly meant to be day filled with chance encounters from dawn to dusk. Our morning started by the alarm for breakfast and to get to our 10am planned Segway tour. We had a difference in palate for the breakfast spread. It was good! Tracy loved it….I liked it. A very fancy selection of more sweetness than the savory I enjoy. We both LOVED the ambiance of our restaurant. Mostly the music playing during breakfast. Tracy was shazaming every song, she will be making a play list for us after the trip. It all had such a cool vibe tune. We tried all the meats, cheeses, sweet breads, and of course our little egg/custard goodness, OMG! These lil tarts have become our favorite things to search for the best. Off to race to the Segway….its a brisk freezing cold air outside and we start walking along the river. It sort of reminds me of the river in Budapest. The European feel of old world is surrounding us. I am SO happy to have sneakers on my feet today.

We hiked up the first of many steep hills. Thought we could attack the 145 steps until we saw them, we purchased tickets for the funicular up the giant cliff to the next level of the city. After making a few wrong turns with Tracy snapping photos everywhere, we made it. We were greeted by the guy telling us the english speaking guide was unavailable until afternoon. We must come back at 3 pm. Originally, disappointed, as we woke up early when truly exhausted from the travel day before. I was really set on a tour to get our ‘lay of the land’, before Dora starts her true exploration. We see the big Red hop on/hop off bus. We purchase tickets and boarded our private bus on the second floor, first row seat with a huge picture window. A perfect view of every major must see stop around this big, yet, tiny city. With headphones on we listen to these streets come to life, telling us a story dating back to the 1400’s. So much history before our eyes, which we take it all in like sponges. We passed by parts of this city we otherwise would not have seen. While passing by scenery that does not have the meaning worth sharing, the ear buds are playing music that makes us feel like we are experiencing a Woody Allen movie. Driving by hospitals, medical buildings, tree-lined streets with red, yellow, and green leaves scattered all over. Regular Portuguese people living everyday normal life amongst a movie set filled with color and richness. The incredible architecture, balcony’s hanging on the side of run down apartments, that are really gorgeous, laundry blowing in the wind by clothes pins, baroque-style, from 1700’s. History you cannot find in the USA. It starts raining and we are thrilled we are on a bus. It is a COLD day and we are both in our winter gear with scarfs, hats, tracy has gloves, hands in pockets for me. Thank you Rachel for this REI jacket, and SHOUT OUT to Blog Master MARC…its his BIG BIRTHDAY,🎉🎉 Happy Bday!

The bus crosses over to the Gaia side. Thanks to my recent dinner with my fireman 👨‍🚒 Scott having just been in Portugal, we knew Taylor’s was on this side of the river and a must experience. Little did we know Gaia was also the side for the Fancy 5 star over the top hotels. One of the many things I have in common with Fancy Tracy is our love of Fancy hotels. We both enjoy hotel lobby’s, seeing rooms, walking the grounds, and, talking to the hotel employees. We decided to jump off the bus, the sun had peaked out and we realized it was perfect timing to do Taylor’s before needing to be back for the 3pm Segway. We stumbled upon a beauty (Boeria Garden Hotel), which was just bought by Hilton, then the famous well-known Yeatman Hotel. You must google these property’s, they were beyond stunning. Especially at this time of year, the Christmas decorations everywhere make this fairytale city that much more magical. We toured both property’s, asked every question you can imagine, LOL. We could seriously be reporter’s here. Tracy tells everyone I have a blog. I almost think they think its a real deal, not just to my chosen friends & family journal, shhhh. Ha ha

After our photo shoots in each hotel, we ventured to the famous, well-known Taylor’s Port property. The amount of history we learned about Port wine. I will spare you the details, but my daddy would have been over the moon and SO proud. We did the introductory 5 flight tasting paired with 4 of the most delicious creamy cheeses. Tracy’s fav was the Tawney, I liked the Classic Vintage Port best. We became BFF with our port teacher, Jose…pronounced Joe-Zey..u can call him Zay. What a cool guy…we loved him and he was thoroughly entertained by us crazy american girls. We became friends and shared Whats App contact info, a young Taurus, his father is a wine-maker, and he recently graduated from the University in Journalism. He has been to America, only NYC- he got to participate in a spanish speaking reality TV show as an extra on his travels. It was such a funny story he stumbled upon, while drinking in our country, lol. I did taste the Port at room temp, but as you all know Laurie loves her ice, 😂😂I had to try it with ice too. Tracy wanted to cringe, and kept saying WWBD (think Bruce🙃😅). She actually referred to me as Bruce’s daughter, the Hillbilly. I had a hysterical laughter attack, she was laughing- we were a scene at this fancy establishment. It was one of those had to be there moments. My other travel partners know what these priceless fun moments are like. 😂🤣The moments in life worth living for….I actually have a huge smile while my fingers are pecking away writing this at 2am. Geez!! Ok, lots of photo footage of Taylor’s, peacocks were on the property and Tracy was obsessed with them. It was a quiet peaceful place, minus us- HA.

We left and now were in a hurry again to get across the bridge on foot and find our way through this maze of a city. Ill spare you the details of this puzzle, lets just say we arrived at the last second. Here starts the BEST part of the day and why the morning tour was not meant to be. Serendipity at its finest….we met Joao, pronounced Joe-Wow, but means Jon in english. An older man who lived all his life in Porto, he says Porto is his soul….Im telling you a very good Segway guide feels deep passion for their city and roots. I gave him a hug good bye at the end as I really enjoyed him SO much! We had another guy on the tour with us, an awkward kind soul….a guy from Transylvania, Romania….he looked and acted like someone you would imagine from Transylvania- think the movie.🧛🏻 He loved us! We all zipped alllll over this city, really learning everything you want to know about all the important sights. I recommend him….the company was called Blue Dragon Tours. A must experience if you come here and with him. The cobblestone streets, hills, bumps, turns, traffic, and people make all of us Segway Pros now. Poor Tracy fell, thank goodness she was okay, but seriously biffed it big time. Baruch Hashem, 🙏🏻she was totally ok. We now know what our full free day will consist of tomorrow, as he showed us SO many areas and we know what to do tomorrow now. We did learn Portugal is the 3rd safest country in the ENTIRE world, 240k people live in this metropolitan part of Porto, Porto was recently named the #1 touristic city in the world by the Dubai contest. Portugal became a city in 1143, its the oldest country in Europe. Fyi- these are facts from Joao, I feel like they may need some fact checking, but he was adamant about all his reporting. A very cool fact was the name of Portugal….Porto- Gaia…those 2 city’s make up the name Port-u-gal. In his accent it was a cool fact and story. He brought us into a cafe that was beautiful, he claims it was voted/named the 6th most beautiful cafe in the world….he kept telling us we could google all of this info. 23k students attend Porto University, a beautiful place to go to school. I highly recommend this as a great city to study abroad.

CUJ- you would have enjoyed his political sharing….first the new Mayor has turned the city around completely in the past 10 years, he has added so much beauty for tourism, and changed SO much. I gotta look him up as he sounds fascinating. This guy told us how he was left all his life, he does not like the right, yet this mayor was always right, and became independent as he likes the social reasons. Examples shared were marijuana, abortion, gay, freedom related topics. It was a very interesting soap box session. Our guy shared how this Mayor has gotten people to change to be independent and not behind a party or side, yet a person. 🤷🏻‍♀️We were all intrigued. It was interesting as the newer buildings, style, modern things to help the country were all because of this Mayor according to our guide.

Okay, best part of this remote work, I had 2 work calls today, with the 8 hour time difference, My calls were from 6:30 pm to 8:15. I did them in the comfort of this incredible hotel room, with the river out the window and a glass of port in my hand. Life is good….wow how chapters in life can change just like that-poof. Darkness becomes light!! Truly blessed!!

We had a dinner reservation planned for 9 pm at the Michelin rated restaurant recommended by the Israeli couple from last night. We both were not in the mood for a long drive and looked at SOoooo many TA reviews and photos of different places to eat closer by, after nothing enticed us we spoke to our lovely Front desk family member….ha- Shana will understand that description 😉 We headed out to her 2 suggestions down the street. Both were a no-go for our taste buds….. we once again stumbled upon a hidden gem, Serendipity at its finest….A place called Traca. The best service, lovely friendly wait staff, a community table to sit and enjoy the best eavesdropping next to us. And a traditional Portuguese meal. We finally tried a true salted cod dish, yummy tomato toast- which has a real name Im forgetting, a healthy awesome salad with prosciutto/ raisins/goat cheese/ pine nuts and light dressing. We ate like pigs again, but really only tasted everything…got a mushroom risotto and a crazy deer/venison/foe grois(misspelled) ha. Its late….sorry. Fyi, Tracy’s fiancé is a restauranteur in NYC & Naples….Tracy is like a food critic reporter, constantly snapping photos of every dish presented, she reports back the details. You will either find a true Portuguese restaurant pop up in the US soon or they could open a location here……j/k, but my blog seriousness mixed with her food biz- we r quite the duo.

Anyways, the crazy part was all that food and 2 sangrias with another green wine and the meal was only $87. This country is redic cheap to eat and drink like a queen, and to Tracys observation they are all skinny.

On our walk home we smelled sweetness and had to share a plain powdered sugar crepe. I know oink 🐷! The good news is we walked 15,600 steps…over 6 miles. Halleluyah! I will be going on a week long juice fast when back.

We made it home at midnight. Its now 2:45am and we have no commitments tomorrow except for a 6 pm dinner Rez, LOL

Sweet Dreams….thanks againn for all the replies, comments, emails, etc. Missing you all!

love Laurie Sue, aka Dora and Fancy T👠 xo ❤️

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