Trip around Portugal - Porto part 1 (English version)

Denmark. Aalborg, it's 4 pm, some stupid weather is out, it's not cold, it's not warm, it's getting cloudy. Honza is just arriving from college and after 3 days of constant drinking, the only thing on his mind is to go to bed and not get up until tomorrow. However, what kind of friend would I be if I let him do it, no brother, you can't lie down! We walk to the train station, from where I will take the train and slowly go to the airport, fuck Honza if u can't drink in your 20es when will u be able to? Nothing, the two of us are walking, he doesn't feel like it, he's dragging himself, but he's going, fuck it, bro, he's feeling shitty that I am leaving.

We sit on the bench, he dead, I am full of energy, eager to leave the dark, cloudy, sad Danish ambiance and head to warmer and sunnier parts of Europe. The train came, we said goodbye and I went to the airport.

I flew Aalborg - Copenhagen by airplane, a fast flight of about 40 minutes, passed completely okay, I had both places for myself.

In Copenhagen,  3 hours of transfer until next flight, I have used the time to the maximum, talked with mom over a video call, after 3 days we haven't heard from each other, because, fuck, I had to make up for 2 weeks of outbreak from Denmark. And after that, one and a half-hour of conversation with my internship boss. Time has flown by, the call is ending boarding is on. The plane, so fucking many ​​people, I don't even know how we're all going to get inside. I am already a little annoyed because the flight lasts a good 3 and a half hours.

Passing the ticket control and standing in some space behind it, the Danes came with 2 drug control dogs. The dogs don't control anything, they jump around, they play, policemen just give up and start throwing a ball at the airport, there is a general disorder, these two are jumping, going crazy, running as if they were in the grass. Top.

In the plane for Porto, the plane is full like a pomegranate, a Dane is sitting next to me, a place of space between us, and thank God I don't have to squeeze. There were maybe 4 more free seats on the whole plane, and as she was traveling with some of her friends, she moved to them. She gets up, trying to pick up her stuff, meanwhile, I fully stretched out over 3 seats and said goodnight. That's how you dream of securing 3 seats in the plane with one insolent move. The flight was calm, without turbulence, looking out the window, a little sleeping, a little watching of the series, the best and most interesting part of the trip was when we arrived in Paris. The Eiffel Tower can be seen from 11,270 meters, maybe I heard our attitude wrong, but anyhow, it was visible.

The first picture is Paris with a rounded tower, and the second is Paris in motion, but unfortunately, it is a blurry picture because I didn't manage to fix the cell phone. While trying, Paris already went into the background.

We landed in Porto and it was already quite late in the evening, 23:45, and the last train from the airport left at midnight. A hurried walk through the airport, it is already in my head that there is no chance of getting on the train because I guess I should show someone that famous covid-19 negative test. However, nothing, green pass, you just pass, no boundaries, no controls, nothing. No one alive asks me a negative test from Denmark to Portugal. Top, I will manage to board on the train. On the train I am sitting in a hoodie, I'm hot, and I can't take it off, coy I didn't have a t-shirt underneath. In Denmark, masks are not mandatory anywhere anymore, only a plane and an airport(because it is like an international space) and in Portugal they are mandatory and that was a change for me, again. We get off the train at the main station in the city, booking a hostel close to the train station was such a good move. It's midnight, it's raining outside, it's warm, but it's raining. I walk around the city lightly uphill to the hostel, the first thing I noticed is that the city lives at night, cafes are open, people sit, drink, fuck I miss that. Southern mentality. The streets, I walk through, immediately noticing a different style of construction than anything I saw in Europe so far. It draws my attention to South America, and again on the other hand to Europe, it's night, am tired. Entrance to the hostel, the best one I have visited, hospitality at the level, the receptionist from Brazil, willing to help as much as possible, explains things to me, takes me to the room, shows me everything and then the dream comes up smoothly. I get up first thing in the morning, thinking that I still don't have much time on the first day of Porto and that I should use it to the maximum. Eating breakfast at the hostel and after, a bag on your back, and let’s go!

I took a map from the receptionist and circled where and what I wanted to see on the first day of my stay in Porto. I am not a big fan of google maps, often some things that are shown there are misrepresented, they do not give a real picture and distance, so the act, wherever I get the opportunity for an old paper card, is immediately taken. So the plan is that I will first go to the upper part of Porto, to the park, and then to the Boavista district to visit the football stadium of the club of the same name. Walking through the streets and having the same experience as the day before, everything is unusual, they have tiles that my grandmother has in the bathroom around the building. I like the idea, they have them in buildings, churches, hotels, and even in the park!

At the bottom left picture is a Church that encounters immediately after exit out of the hostel, surrounded by large modern buildings, it stands alone, somehow in its own style, resisting today's norms and standards of construction. The first thought is that Church doesn't belong there, so there you are standing and you think. You see that it is older than these buildings and that they were built later and that they do not belong there, not the artistic Church, built who knows how many years before. 

I walk around the city, it's around 9 a.m., the city is slow, there aren't too many people outside, people that are outside are just opening cafes, shops, and bakeries. It is warm and there is a lot of humidity in the air, it is cloudy, but there are ordinary white clouds and it does not look like it will rain. I walk uphill, downhill, in Porto, there is no flat part of the city except the river, but well, far I am from there! I don’t expect rain, but to my surprise, the sky opened up and gray clouds came. However, the gray and rain are resisted by the colorful buildings of Porto, so rain does not spoil the atmosphere at all, the locals are trying to hide, run to the just-opened cafes, and I am so chill, a hat on my head, a bag on my back and a walk.

I walk further down the street and the scene surprised me, in the middle of Porto there is a communist-style of construction, I am slightly surprised, because Portugal, at least to my knowledge, has never had communism, at least not in the last 100 years, when that style of political rule, culture, etc was formed. However, I look a little better, and the bottom of the building has sickle and hammer motifs. I stand confused and try to find out where this building in Porto came from, it feels like I’m in some country of the former Soviet Union.

In the end, I learned that the left-wing political orientation has been strengthening in Portugal lately and that is why they have a lot of communist signs on the streets, on posters, flags ...

Some diversity, I leave communism behind, I walk on and not even 100 meters away from there the total contrasting scenery, I feel like I am in Colombia visiting Pablo Escobar. Huge villa, 3-meter fence around it, huge garden, greenery, and palm trees. What a change in 100 meters!

Interesting building styles and changes in this Portugal, that is, in Porto at least, the rest I have not seen yet. I am looking for a stadium of Boavista, should be right there somewhere behind the house, the only thing you see is a huge wall of 70 meters high that looks to me like a parking garage or a barrier between the height differences in the city. I walk a little further when I realize it's a stadium ... The exterior of the stadium looks so bad, that when someone says that we have shameful stadiums in Croatia, I think that Croatian first league stadiums are a level above this.

I arrive in front of the entrance, which, as much as it looks representative, can pass. I see that the entrance is open for employees and that the reception of the club is working, I think to myself why not giving a shot and asking to see the stadium from the inside. I come to the counter and some younger girl tells me that she doesn't really know how to speak English and that I just go inside and that I will meet someone who I can ask. I already think to myself, hell, I'm not going to ask anyone if I come in, so what happens happens. But fuck me and my imagination, there is a security guard inside the hallway, he greets me and I immediately ask him if he can let me inside, that I am coming from Croatia, blah blah, also that I am studying sport and so on. He said that he could and that he would be happy to personally take me around the stadium for free, but that he would let me in only at 2-3 in the afternoon because now they have training until 1 and no one is allowed inside except the club staff. He was more than fair and correct, I thanked him for the opportunity and left the stadium.

From the stadium the idea is to go towards the city center, there is no point in going up anymore, I will lose time and I will not see anything. In the meantime, the rain stopped and the weather brightened again. Walking towards the city and some park that I saw on the map, that could look promising. On the walk to the park, I went to a new part of the city, which did not delight me too much, so I will not even post pictures of it. The purpose of the walk was finished after a 20-minute I realized that masks are obligatory in Portugal, even while walking down the street. However, I'm honestly not wearing a mask, it has been proven that masks do not protect against the covid-19 virus, so fuck it, so many traveled countries in last year, not that unlucky to pick up that shit in Porto. The park is spacious and large, and if you climb a building in the park you can see the whole city, of course, it costs very well, so I skillfully avoid it, plus it started to get cloudy again, so there was no point in paying.

Descending a little below the park and seeing the other side of Porto for the first time, is interesting because there are no buildings and it is not very populated, and the climate and nature are tropical in appearance.

I walk further along the river that flows through Porto, which is called the Douro, and as the Atlantic Ocean is very close, I was convinced that it was the sea, but the locals pointed out a mistake and thank them for that!

From here, the way goes up to the UNESCO part of the city center, otherwise, Porto has a lot, a lot of greenery and a lot of parks, I do not know why or how, but it always catches my eye when traveling, it must be because Split does not have many of them.

Igreja do Carmo was the next destination, the Church on the front has a million details, it is made of stone, a quiet European style construction, however when viewed from the side, again mosaic tiles, fantastic Church appearance, one of the better buildings in Porto.

Fascinated and satisfied with Porto for now, and it's only 11 in the morning, the rain wet me 2-3 times, and I am still positive, not bad, cool! I'm not even sure, but it's warm and I guess I am starting to like these tiles from the bathroom.

Around the Church there is a lot of shit, restaurants, cafes, a park, a fountain, a museum, a town hall ... I walk further to the most famous tower in Porto, which is a 2-3 minute walk away.

I have a feeling that I am in South America, the picture down right.

 

 Now it is the moment to drop the map and go what I see and what caught my eye, just go there and see it,  no plan, just following eyes and feeling. So the idea is from this tower to go a little to the left, turns down to the right near the Church, and below there is a view of the city. As a recognized southern country, now watch this. Vision, wild entrance, mud on the floor, no landscaping, garbage from food and drinks around, atmosphere and ambiance on the level. Just an idea in my head, you know I am from Split, so this is a mentality. Fuck the garbage and after all, it's not my problem, someone else will take care of it. I stand for a photo as every other tourist, giving the phone to some Dutch tourists to take pictures of me, a smile is on and acting like there is no garbage, and fuck it, I can also be a hypocrite for the picture... (I guess the majority of readers could understand my sarcasm here and point of my story) and song in the head, Louis Armstrong... What a wonderful world!!! 

Walk on, I pop up again under the tower, now on the right side and this street thrilled me because it completely shows what Porto is like, you are at the top, then a string is waiting for you, and then some string is waiting for you again, then non stop up, down. Mostly, at the bottom down, where the cars were crowded near the traffic lights, there is a real big European square on the left side, otherwise, there is also a town hall, but there are some works, so the picture didn't turn out to be a promising one, so I ain't posting that shite. Now, when you go up there, it is the oldest church in Porto and it burns somewhere to the right, the Cathedral is also uphill, but then, uphill again, surprise! Btw I almost fell down here, because I was looking around.

Here I am about 10 minutes later on the other side, uphill, at the foot of the oldest church in Porto. I don't have a photo of the Church, only video, and already experienced with videos not working on the blog, I will not post it. From there, the idea goes to the Cathedral in Porto, because you can see the coming easily before I will rest somewhere, it has already become hot and it is noon. People are on the streets, there are a lot of tourists, walking lightly, passing by, now I don't know what exactly it is, but there were a lot of homeless people who attached their improvised beds and tents to that building, didn't pay too much attention to them, and neither do they to me. Everyone does their own thing, they don't beg, they just read books and lie down, congrats!

The picture on the right is a view of the city from below the cathedral, the picture is not impressive, but you can see that mixture of influences on this city. There on the left where you can see that bell tower, there is that viewing tower with mud, and on the right where that tower is, from there is the upper picture with the hills and lowlands of the Porto.

The cathedral in Porto, massive, large, and at first, look at that, there are no tiles, thank God. No, no, you screwed up, there are tiles, only they are sideways, so you can't see the spread, they put mosaics of tiles in the arches of the Cathedral.

And now?

Now interestingly, Porto is a city on two floors, knowing that this now sounds like I am fucking debil, what two floors? But it is like that, when you go from the Cathedral you walk on the bridge to the other side, the upper floor of the bridge, where trains and pedestrians go, and when you go back to the other side by the river, to the side of the old Port, then you go down the side, where cars go and pedestrians, at least the way how I passed it, the order of crossing can be reversed.

 

Moving to the other side, I am in the most beautiful park in Porto, personally, it is a smaller park, but quite beautiful, diverse, and overlooks the entire city. Here I am resting and chilling, for like some 10 minutes, enjoying the sun, absorbing the rays, and absorbing the vibe of the city. You won't get the picture, because it's the most beautiful park I saw, I enjoy it there and I couldn't think of taking out my phone at all, so for that purpose, run to Porto to see that park and enjoy it and in the view of the city, ps. buy one beer Super Bock, I fucked it up, by drinking water.

I went down with a cable car to see the city from that perspective and it definitely paid off. One direction with the cable car is 9 euros, I only went down. A pleasant ride lasts about 4-5 minutes, the view is beautiful, and yes, who is afraid, will survive, the wind is not blowing too much, just a little, but still, the wind coming from the river and the Atlantic Ocean is a mix. You can survive, just enjoy the view and don't think about it.

After going down, my main goal was to try the wine, I think whoever comes to Porto and doesn't taste the wine in the city of wine, would be pure debil. Try the red wine, it was top-notch. 

So I am down walking next to the river on the other side of Porto, chilling, crossing the bridge on the lower stage. Thinking of food, where, and what to eat, I am checking prices alongside the river path. Pizza 16 euros, beer 4 means some 20 euros to eat. Then as any stupid tourist, not proud of this, but fuck it, I will go to the McDonalds, but it doesn't matter, I just realized that you can order beer in the McDonalds in Portugal, so the lunch remains enthusiastic. 

After being full, I lost the idea of where to go, I saw the majority of the things, but not the big European square, I have mentioned before. There you go, so I'm full after lunch, if you can call it lunch, walking uphill, 2 and a half o'clock in the afternoon, the sun is roasting me, the bag on my back weighs 16 kilos, sweat drips from me, but fuck it, what's up Porto, is that best what you can serve me?      

                 

 

After that, I walked along a street full of shops, and the classic European wide street, just a promenade, has no cars or motorcycles, a million people, a million shops and cafes. I wasn't thrilled by anything, but as I was there already, it is better to see everything. Along the way, I thought of going to the store to buy something to eat, drink, and a beer, now that was the moment when you needed to freshen up. I decided to go to the fortress above the bridge, on the other side from where I have been before and from there the whole city can be seen. Walking to the fortress, I saw a tram, well Portugal is well known because of them, so I took a photo of it, you know, just for good memory. 

I fell asleep under the fortress, on the grass in the chilly mood. Drank beer, slowly sipped it and rested. It is afternoon from 4pm until 4:45. There are a lot of people next to me, some are sleeping, some resting, some do yoga and stretch. Somehow I think I choose the best hour to be there. Done with beer, I am putting my backpack under my head, and falling asleep for 20 minutes. Power nap, the plan is to come to the bus station from where I will head off to Lisbon. By the way, this station is like a cigani settlement, horror, there is nothing, not even a cover for the sun, you can be let alone for rain, who is planning it, I have no idea, worse than in Split bus station. At least it is in the city center. It has normal access and exit road, well... an access road not really, but it has an exit road. That's it, the first part of the trip to Portugal is over, I am on the bus to Lisbon, the trip takes about 3 hours and there is a colleague from the class waiting for me, Gui!