A New Country For Me

 Food Tour is over – Farewells have been said. 

 A friend had said to me – you are only a couple of hours away from Portugal – go!  So I went. I got up before the crack of dawn to catch a bus to Porto, the 2^nd largest city in Portugal. My hotel, the Porto A.S. 1829 is located right in the center of the historical district. I got a corner room, overlooking a square and right above where the street musicians would play. They played from about ten in the morning until about ten at night and they all had amplifiers. I think they were an organized group, each would play about an hour, leave and then the next musician would set up. Some of the musicians were fabulous, some were ok. Nobody was horrible. So, it was a treat.

A new definition for en suite

View out my window

That is my hotel room.  Third floor up, left side.
You can see a guitar player down in the background.

I figured that I should head for one of the tallest places in Porto to get the lay of the land. Of course, that meant that I was heading for a cathedral. It seems like people like to put their churches on the highest land nearby. I guess it is the ol' closer to heaven thing.

Porto Cathedral

See that tower?  I climbed to the top of it.  Yay Me!

The old section of Porto

And of course you have to take a picture of the altar

I wandered over to the train station.  One thing Portugal is known for is their tilework.  This was a pretty fancy train station.

Upon checking on the 'must-see' sights in Porto, one that kept popping up was the Palacia Da Balsa. I really do like going to palaces, I like to see how the rich folk live. I lucked out that there was an English speaking tour starting within five minutes after I arrived. It was then that I found out this was not a live-in palace but a commercial center. It was also called the Stock Market Palace. It was still a pretty grand office building.

The entry foyer

A courtroom

If you look at this wooden floor, it starts to look 3-D

The fanciest room was called The Arab Room.
It was used for special occasions.

The ceiling