It is a tradition in Spain to eat 12 grapes at the stroke of midnight on New Year’s Eve. My friend Gisela told me that you were to make a wish for each grape. This was going to be a challenge all while taking slugs of the free flowing cava that our friends were passing around while we watched fireworks over Plaça Espanya. I did manage to get the grapes down but I lost count on the wishes.

One of our wishes was realized when the first trip of the new year was visiting a new (for us) country. We flew into Porto (Oporto as it is known in Portuguese) on January 11th. One observation about Portuguese is that it looks very similar to Spanish in print but it sounds very different to me. They share many of the same words but they can mean different things. We took a train from the airport into town and were wowed by the very first building we saw after climbing up from the metro station. It was a church covered in blue and white tiles. Many of the public buildings have historic scenes depicted in tiles which are mostly blue and white. The souvenir shops were full of little tile and cork objects. There were cork shoes, purses, belts, hats, lunch boxes, postcards, wallets, jewelry and even umbrellas. Almost half of the worlds cork production comes from Portugal. We saw many cork forests while riding the train from Portugal to Spain. More on that later.

The other product that Porto is known for is Port wine. We found a place near the Douro River that runs through town that offered Port tastings. We learned about white, tawny and ruby ports. We also took a Tuk Tuk tour. (What a fun sentence to say aloud!) These little all electric vehicles are perfect for navigating the narrow streets. They aren’t perfect for passenger visibility though. One of the things we learned on our tour was that J.K. Rowling had lived here and taught at the University for about 6 years. Our driver pointed out a coffee shop and bookstore that she had frequented and had been influential in her Harry Potter books.The Livraria Lello is probably the most beautiful bookstore I have ever been in. It does remind you a bit of Hogwarts. It has become such a tourist magnet that they have started charging admission, although you get the whole €4 back if you buy something.

The next morning we boarded a train from the tile covered Porto station to Lisbon. After a 4 hour ride we  got on a bus to take us closer to our hotel. The hotel was in a refurbished convent that was in the Alfama, the old Moorish part of town and therefore on a super narrow street. We had to walk up and down staircases and streets so meager that the sidewalks were too constricted for our suitcases. The view over Lisbon and the Tagus River was delightful.

That night we heard a Fado singer in one of the nearby restaurants. Fado is a style of music unique to Portugal. It has a very melancholy sound and is sung with much passion. The next morning we visited the Museo de Azulejo or tile museum. They have an outstanding collection of tiles dating back to the 16th century. There was devastating earthquake in Lisbon in 1755 that destroyed much of the town which was followed by fires and a tsunami. The display of painted tiles at the museum that depict the skyline of Lisbon before 1755 has become an important historical record of that time.

We spent most of the afternoon walking around town and seeing the riverfront, monuments and riding Tram 28. Lisbon still uses streetcars just like the ones in San Francisco as part of the public transportation system. Tram 28 is famous for going up streets that are just wide enough for the streetcar. That night we walked uphill and found a cozy little French creperie that played old French music from the 40’s. Their crepes were named after famous actors. Roy had the Gerard Depardieu. They reminded us of some memorable crepes we had in Quebec City a few years ago.

The next day we boarded a train for Mérida, Spain. We had to change trains in Entroncamento and that was interesting. When we saw the train we were to take, we thought there must be some mistake. It was only 1 car! But it was indeed our train and it made every stop that it possibly could. It took about 5 hours to go 240 km. There were only about 10 of us on this little train including the engineer and conductor. One thing interesting about this trip though was the storks. We started seeing lots of huge bird nests on the tops of abandoned buildings and at one place there were at least a half dozen storks.

Roy will be writing about what we did after arriving in Mérida.