Our Swiss Adventure: Porto Portugal

At the beginning of January we treated ourselves to a little weekend getaway in Porto, Portugal. Kevin don't like to waste no time. It was only 7 weeks post stroke, but he was getting cabin fever in Zürich and wanted to spend some time in the sun. (Also, he's been in panic mode as the due date approaches and has been trying to get in as much travel as possible before Baby arrives). I'm not one to argue with a spontaneous weekend getaway so off we went. Let me tell yuh, when neither of us is drinking we are super efficient sightseers. I swear after the first day I felt like we did it all. Surprisingly you can get a lot accomplished when you're not stopping for a wine break every two seconds. Although I must admit I prefer the wine breaks.

Shining View Apartment

We stayed in an apartment called Shining View. It was in a great location in the center of the historical district and also had pretty views.

Views from Balcony

Kevin with his Christmas present - a custom made leather weekender bag made by my incredibly talented cousin Thomas. Check out his website: Bryer Leather

A little Mya puppy seagull who liked to hang out on our balcony.

Walk Around Town

We loved the architecture with all these beautifully tiled buildings.

Dom Luis Bridge

On the Douro River - one side of the river is the city Porto & the other side is the city Gaia. Gaia is where all the port wineries are located.

View from Porto Cathedral

Porto Cathedral

Walking over the Dom Luis Bridge

View from the city Gaia of the Dom Luis bridge & Porto

View of Porto from Gaia

Crystal Palace Gardens in Porto

Lello Bookshop

The interior's architecture inspired the Hogwart's Library from Harry Potter. JK Rowling lived in Porto in the 90's.

See how the winding staircase is similar to the ones from Harry Potter?

They used to transport Port wine via these boats.

Foz do Douro

A district in Porto with beaches. We took the tram to this area to check out the sea.

Our new vacay beverages. Doesn't quite have the same effect as a picture of a nice glass of wine with a pretty background.

Ferreira

Port Wine Cave Tour & Tasting

Even though I couldn't drink and Kev was limited to 1-2 glasses a day, we still had to take a tour in one of the many port wineries. We choose to go to Ferreira and I'm glad we did. The tour guide was excellent, and we learned so much about Port wine. I definitely recommend going it's very interesting.

Our tour guide telling us about the vintage ports behind him. Vintage port is made only from the best grapes of a single vintage (year), and only in years that have been “declared” vintage-worthy, which usually happens just a few times a decade.

Kevin's tasting

The tasting room

Our Favorite Spots to Eat

We had the BEST pork sandwich at Casa Guedes. Locals filled this place and the line was out the door.

While we were visiting the beaches in Foz we had lunch at Al forno Caffe. Had the best caprese panini with homemade potato chips, and it's very cute inside.