Day 1 Porto, Portugal

Hotel Royal Bridges, Rua de Sa da Bandeira 53, Sala 111, Porto, Portugal.  You can see the narrow street, and lots of pedestrian traffic.  You can see we're in Old Town with the bulk of the architecture not being modern like our hotel.  We spent 4 nights here.  Two nights were scheduled with the tour, and we added 2 pre-tour nights.

We arrived mid morning from our overnight flight.  Relaxed a bit here in the dining room.  This is where we'll have breakfast each morning.

The bar area with the reception desk in front.  Our room wasn't ready, so we relaxed and had a refreshing Gin and Tonic.

There was a bit of problem in that they gave us the wrong type of room, so we ended up walking around while they were fixing the problem.  But once in, this was our room and the view from our room.

A short walk from our hotel was the Sae Bento Train Station with gorgeous tiles, each frame telling a story.

The train station was built Oct 5, 1916 on the site of a Benedictine Convent

Since we've not gotten to check into our room yet, we're still wearing our traveling clothes.

Portugal is known for Port Wine, Cork, White Washed Villages, Roman Ruins, and ancient Castles.  Porto is a UNESCO site.  It's extremely hilly with uneven and often slippery cobblestone.  Wear good walking shoes.  I struggled a bit in our small walk, as I'm still wearing my traveling flats, not my walking shoes.

On our way from the airport to the hotel, our driver told us the most famous of Portugal dishes is a Francesinha Sandwich.  He said it's a must, it's large and very good.  French fries are also a big thing in Portugal.  So we found a little cafe near the hotel and settled in for an early dinner.  We share the one order of fries and Francesinha Sandwich....and we still didn't finish the whole thing.  I don't know how people can eat all that on their own.

The brief description of the sandwich is: layers of meat (pork and beef we think), covered in a cheese and a beer sauce with an egg on top.  You can see how the sauce is almost like soup.  Sometimes this is served on top of the fries sometimes on the side.

We had an early nightcap once back at the hotel of Bourbon and called it a night.

PLEASE leave me a comment when you come visit, so I know you were here. Your visits and comments are very special to me. AND remember, leave your name and url and not your profile link. Name and url takes me right to your blog post so I can reciprocate the visit.