Porto

We woke up rather early this morning in hopes to see all we needed in Porto and move onto our next stop. It was another cold start, which always has us moving slower, and we managed to be on our way in around one hour. The tourist office was located 3 km away from where we parked and because of this we ended up passing through many of the shopping areas and plazas along the way. It also took us through one of the “highlight” areas of Porto; this was basically a steep back alley leading towards the river. Porto is described as being “grimy” and we felt that was a bit of an understatement. We have been seeing many stray animals since arriving in Portugal and even some areas of Spain. This time we even watched a dog jump into a dumpster. There are also many run down, almost deserted homes. At times I am reminded of the poorer areas of Mexico when I was there 3 years ago. Sometimes it is depressing to wander these areas and it definitely doesn’t conjure up the images we had of Spain and Portugal. Porto is Portugal’s second largest city and yet we have been to many nicer towns so far. We decided not to take the excursion across the river to one of the many Port wine makers and turned around and made our way back towards the van. Along the way, we did see a small castle and in one of the “highlight” alleys there was a street sign indicating no snails are allowed. Other than that we felt this was a disappointment.