The Daily Diary of a Wandering Restaurateur
The Long Road to Porto
After five hours on the road, we finally pulled into Porto around 5 this afternoon. It seems like we were just here. Oh,
that's right, we were! We spent a week in Porto just before last Christmas and really liked our apartment in the historic
district ... so much so that going into this trip, Porto seemed like our leading contender in the relocation raffle.
This trip we want to get more afield and see what might be available with the water view Margene needs. That will likely
put us away from the historic center, but if the necessities (groceries, shopping, restaurants) are within walking distance,
the area might have a contender.
The only downside of the last place we stayed was the parking. The choice was either continually feeding the meter on the
street or paying enormous euros to put it in a lot. The lot idea took on more urgency last December after I came down to
find the vent window on my rental car smashed! This time the building has an underground parking garage! Gotta love that!
It's a fairly modern two bedroom, two bath flat with a nice kitchen, washing machine and a lot of room. There's a mini
supermarket just around the corner with most anything we'd want to stock the fridge. The only downside is a lack of
restaurants within crawling distance. There are several pastelaria (snack bars), but if you want something more than a
sandwich or a hamburger, there are few choices. Maybe I'll stumble into something tomorrow.
What can you say about the autostrada? Fast? Yes. Good Road? Yes. Expensive? Yes. Scenic? Not so much. Anyway, our day consisted mostly of these sorts of views. If we didn't have so far to travel and so little time to do it, I would have vastly preferred side roads where we could get a little closer to the sense of the country. Maybe on the way back down to Lisbon ...
Not much else to show you today. The apartment is a block from the Casa de Musica, a modern performance venue [and a slightly older neighbor] with an amazingly diverse series of artists passing through. Our ground floor balcony opens onto a central courtyard, a tranquil retreat in the middle of the city. That's about all I can tell you today.
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