Road trip to Porto

The fall has been running by quickly, and suddenly there are only three weeks of exchange in Lisbon left. Therefore the weekend road trip we did with a group of exchange friends to Porto will probably also be our last trip together for now. Luckily though the trip was quite amazing and we had a great time seeing new beautiful places in Portugal.

Beautiful Porto

As we were a group of 15 people, we rented out three cars and decided to meet up in Porto with each car making their own stops on the way. Some went to Coimbra and Aveiro, others stopped in Fátima, and our road trip team decided to stop in Nazaré which is home to the world's biggest wave. At this time of year, the cute looking town was quite deserted but I can imagine that the long beach is packed in summer time. We did not see any majorly big waves (although in my opinion, the regular sized waves looked big enough to keep me out of the water) but it was fun to see some surfers heading into the water at sunset time. 

Nazaré

Can you spot the three surfers?

After Nazaré, we headed towards Porto and the hotel in which our whole group was staying. On previous trips, the whole group has stayed in a big house but this time it was nice to be in a walking distance from the city center. Porto is somewhat similar to Lisbon with its hills, architecture and trams, yet it feels a little less hectic and busy although this may also be due to the fact that it is November and off-season for tourists. Porto itself is truly beautiful - I really liked Porto's riverside with old buildings, cafes, boats and several bridges, especially since we were treated with perfect November weather that we were able to enjoy outside on terraces. 

For the most part, we enjoyed and got to know the city by just walking around, seeing different sights and having a coffee or glass of port here and there. As it is interesting to always try local food specialties in new places, some of us decided to have the traditional Porto dish Francesinha. And interesting it was - the dish consisted of two toast breads filled with ham, beef and sausage, covered with a massive amount of cheese and dipped in a spicy sauce/soup. For the sophisticated part of our trip, we attended an actual wine tasting tour at the Vasconcellos winery where we learned how to identify quality port from supermarket port (this local delicacy was much more to my liking). We also tried out the local night life in the Baixa area, enjoying some really fun bars that played legendary music from the 70's all the way to our childhood favorites from the 90's. 

Francesinha

Given that we only had the weekend to explore Porto, we skipped several activities that could be nice to try. If I get to go back sometime, I will definitely take a boat ride on the Douro river and perhaps also visit a winery in the area where grapes for Port wine are grown.