Arrival in Porto

Sorry about the delays, various things have been keeping me from recounting the trip. Before moving on, I must share the following news: U.S. tour dates for My Bloody Valentine have been announced, and it includes a stop here in Ess Eff. I'm very excited about this news. My Bloody Valentine was one of the most influential bands of the late 80s and early 90s, culminating in the classic "Loveless," which was released in 1991.

With that out of the way. . .

It was with much sadness that we parted ways with our Mini at the Sevilla airport, but such is travelling. There is something I do not understand about European airports- gates are only announced 45 minutes (or less) before departure time. I point this out again, because we arrive into the Sevilla terminal looking to check-in. Well, the airline we are flying, Air Berlin, does not open their check-in counter until 2 hours before the flight takes off, and does not immediately show what gate the flight will be taking off from. Now, that last part is not unique to Air Berlin as it occurs at the airport. We encountered this same issue in Brussels: I do not understand. Maybe they are just being cautious about last-minute gate changes, or, maybe it's my desire for certainty with where we have to be, whatever it is, it's a little annoying. In any event, we make it successfully through security (no taking off shoes required), and have just over an hour to wander around. So, we stop in at a duty-free store to have a look-see. We walk out with two purchase: a 2001 rioja reserve and a pair of earrings for Meg. With that, we stuff them into our carry-on and make our way to the now announced gate and wait to board.

This leg of the trip takes us from Sevilla to Porto, but with a stop-over in Mallora. Mallorca is the main island in a chain of islands off the eastern coast of Spain. From the sky, it appeared to be much larger than I anticipated, and very beautiful. Mallorca is also a hub for Air Berlin. So, in the on-board magazine, there were a lot of advertisements for property in Mallorca, and were very tempting. For example, there was a property that was 5 bedrooms, 4 baths, with infinity pool overlooking the ocean available for $1.4 million. Meg and I are looking for investors to share a vacation home in Mallorca. Anyway, changing planes in Mallorca was a bit of an adventure- the airport is much larger than expected, and caused us to run through the terminal(s) to reach the gate from where our plane was expected to take off. However, we reach the gate, we go through the door and down the ramp. . .and keep walking down, until we reach the tarmac. Still no plane. Instead, there's a bus. We're told to get on the bus, and then we wait. And wait. Two rude men hop on the bus and without a word, bump right past Meg into a open spot behind her on the bus. Finally, the bus drives away from the gate, and takes us to an open area of the airport complex where a group of planes are just there. The bus stops alongside one of the planes and opens the door to let us out. Before us are two ramps, one going up the door at the front of the plane, the other going up to the door at the back of plane. Apparently, you can board via either door. Knowing our seats are toward the back of the plane, we head towards the back door.

I forgot to mention one thing about taking off from Sevilla- when we left the gate, the plane did not back-up. Instead, it turned around as there is enough distance between gates at the Sevilla airport to allow a plane to turn it's front wheels and make a 180 degree pivot. It was very interesting. In Mallorca the plane did back-up, and we took off over the Mediterranean and headed to Porto. We are in the second to last row of the plane, and people apparently view seat assignments as an option as people are sitting all over the place. Plus, the person sitting me behind is talking nearly the entire flight. I become convinced that she is actually talking to a friend on a cell phone; however, it turns out that she has a video recorder pointing out the window and is simply narrating the video. She keeps it up as we land as well. Apparently "safety" regulations are optional as well. Finally, we land in Porto, find our way to get our luggage and head out front to figure out how to get to our hotel.

With the ability of hindsight, I should have ordered some food on this flight- not because I was hungry (I wasn't) or that I needed to get ready for an evening of drinking, but because of what was available: currywurst. At the time I thought we had better things to do with our money than purchase some food for $8 that we didn't need, all the while I go on and on about trying new foods and what a culture eats. I have no doubt that I'll come across currywurst again, and I will not hesitate. But, my mind was on port and the many bottles that would be made available to me in a short time.

We opt for a cab. After an initial quiet period, the cab driver starts talking to us. Not having a grasp of Portuguese, other than reading it and thinking, "Hey, it looks alot like Spanish, I'm sure I could get the hang of it," I realize, no, I don't understand a single thing the guy is saying to us. He can understand a bit of english, but not that much, but he understands a bit more spanish, so that's helpful. I think we had a conversation about our jobs- I try to explain to him what I do, then I try to explain what Meg does, and then he talks about what he does. I say I think because I'm not at all sure what he was saying. The pronunciation of Portuguese is not at all similar to Spanish (or Italian for that matter, which I can also get the hang of if I'm around it long enough). All of the consonants are pronounced with a soft pronunciation (think the "c" in pronunciation instead of the "c" in can). So, it all sounded like a bunch of slurred gibberish to me- actually, it sounded like someone speaking an eastern european language, even though reading it was completely different experience. All that being said, we make it to our hotel and find a very pleasant and modern hotel- the first modern hotel we've stayed at. But, it still had a master power switch, like the rooms in Madrid and Sevilla. Oh, and who should be checking into the hotel right before us- the two men who bumped Meg on the bus waiting for the plane.

We get to our room, have a quick rest and plot our plan for the evening and the next day.

I spend my time looking over a map of Porto, trying to figure out our main goal of getting to Vila Nova de Gaia (where the port houses are located), and Meg going through the travel guide trying to find a place to eat, she finds out that my favorite port house has a restaurant, and a good one at that. So, we give them a call and make reservations for dinner. The cab picks us up, I give him the address, and he doesn't know what I'm talking about. He takes the guide book into the hotel, and comes back a minute or two later and realizes that it's simply the visitor center for Taylor-Fladgate. Off we go, bouncing over stone streets in the old part of Porto, along the Douro River, and there we see it- port house signs all over the hill opposite Porto. In one little bend of the river, the vast majority of the major port houses can be found. We work our way to Taylor-Fladgate, and walk to the restaurant. Taylor-Fladgate is located towards the top of the hill and looks out over the Douro River and across to Porto itself; it's quite a wonderful view.

We sit down and are greeted with a glass of white port, which is very tasty. A nice, sweet way to start dinner. We are presented with a few small plates of various spreads, and we also order a cheese plate- some of the cheese is very good, some are. . .ehhhh. The waiter is very entertaining and more than happy to practice his english, rather than suffer through my inability to speak Portuguese. The first course, we both order soup, which has a wonderful smokey but creamy texture to it. The main course: I order bacalhao (cod) because that's what you order in Portugal and Meg orders a steak, because that's what she's been craving, especially with what happened in Sevilla the night before. We have a bottle of portuguese wine that is very delicious. We both ordered dessert, as well as two glasses of their 10 year old port. We mentioned to the waiter how much we enjoy Taylor-Fladgate port and how Meg bought me a bottle of 30 year old port for my 30th birthday, and he returned a few minutes later with 2 more glasses for each of us: 1 contained their 1983 vintage port and the other contained some 40 year old port. So, sitting before us was 3 glasses: 1 with a 10 year old port, one with a 40 year old port and one with a 1983 vintage. It was quite an experience being able to sample these three ports side-by-side, especially the 1983, even if the 40 year old was our favorite. By way of a quick explanation as to what the previous sentences meant- 1) the 1983 was a declared vintage, which means that it only contains grapes from that year and goes from barrel to bottle much quicker than the other two, it also does not have as long of staying power, meaning that the bottle must be finished within a few hours; 2) 10, 20, 30 and 40 year old ports are a blend of various years, with the number of years on the bottle being the average of the blend. For example, a 20 year old port could be a blend of wine aging in barrels for 2 different amounts of time- 1 barrel being aged for 10 years, the other barrel being aged for 30 years. When we did the tour the next day (more on that in another post), we saw a barrel that was being produced for their 20 year bottle using wine from 1975.

Anyway, it was quite a wonderful evening of food and wine and port, not even the loud group of business men that were seated a table away from us could disrupt the evening. The restaurant called a cab for us, and we were on our way back to down the hill and over the stone streets and across the river and back up the hill on the other side to our hotel. We had just enough energy to decide that we would spend the next day only doing the port houses, instead of using the car to drive out to the vineyards. Our experience with our inability to locate wineries in Spain put a lot of doubt into our heads about being able to just drive out to the country and find tasting rooms, especially on a Tuesday. Plus, we can always come back to Portugal and do that tour- this stop was about port and that's what we did.

And did we ever hit the port houses! But that will have to wait.