Woof everybody. After the most ridiculous and inefficient boarding of a train I’ve been a part of, we're on our way to Lisbon! We’re aboard the CP Intercidades train from Porto to Lisbon, and we do have WiFi so that’s a plus!
Yesterday we took the Gaia cable car from near our hotel up to the top of the Ponte Luis I and just walked around Porto. We had a coffee and pastry at Confeitaria de Bolhao, looked through many shops, witnessed a protest, and had matcha and kombucha at a lovely little spot.
We went for late lunch/early dinner at Casa Guedes Rooftop - Ev finally got some cod and I had a delicious brie and carmelized onion sandwich! And a few porto tonicos.. my new favorite drink!
Next we visited the fanciest McDonalds in the world - McDonald’s Imperial! It opened as a beautiful cafe in 1936 with stained glass windows, chandeliers, etc, and opened as a McDonalds in 1995 where they worked to preserve the art deco interior and exterior of the building.
There was a Hard Rock Cafe on our route so naturally I had to stop in and get a pin for Erica - I pride myself on my gifts being the largest part of her collection.
Our last stop was Livraria Lello, one of the ten most beautiful bookstores in the world. We had seen the outside from the tour on the previous day so we decided to buy tickets to go inside - what’s cool is that your ticket purchase goes toward the purchase of a book! Only certain books are included but they had a wide range of classics available in english; I got Little Women and Evan got Moby Dick! The bookstore is rumored as having been inspiration for J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter although she denies it.. she also denies drawing inspiration for the Hogwart’s uniforms from the University of Portugal students who wear black ties and capes, and different colored sweaters depending on their field of study. She live dinh Portugal for a period of time in the early 90s, near the university and the book store… and a fountain with a griffins on it… but I’m sure none of that had anything to do with her Harry Potter vision. It’s fine.
Anyway, the bookstore was indeed beautiful and we enjoyed our visit - the 7pm slot we purchased was the last one of the evening and not very crowded, which was excellent.
Afterward, we enjoyed a long walk back to the hotel, stopping for gelato on the way. What a lovely evening! As a bonus, daylight savings time in Portugal was last night so we got an extra hour of vacation!
This morning after I had a breakdown over my egg and toast, we checked out of the hotel and now we’re here on the train!
This is the longest I’ve ever been away from my little doggie and I miss him so. Hopefully we’ll get a preview of our wedding video soon to help take my mind off of it!
Boa tarde!
