March 3rd, 2006

Woke up around 9, and headed down to the hostel´s kitchen for some breakfast. Fresh coffee and some pastries go a long way, and we definitely would need the energy. For, you see, today was our port-tasting adventure! We navigated the now somewhat familiar alley-ways and made our way once again to the river Duoro. However this time we crossed the double decker suspension bridge. It starter to pour on us. It was one of those quick European storms, but man was it coming down hard. Thankfully the new rain jacket I had bought for this trip was doing it´s job. We stopped in at Calem, Fonseca, and Sandeman. We checked out the museums, but decided against tasting at that time, since we wanted to see what port-houses there were along the river, and then stop at the ones we wanted to on the way back (and pay the €3 or €4.)

Graham´s ended up being quite a hike past the others, but I had drank a bottle of their Six Grapes Port a few years ago and was impressed, so I defintiely wanted to see the winery. We made up to the top of the hill and were rewarded with not only a spectacular view of the bridge and Porto across the river, but even the port houses dotting the hillside where we had just passed. In addition to that, the winery was quite pleasing in itself.

We asked for a tour and tasting (Graham´s, by the way, was the only free one we came across.) They didn´t have an English tour starting for a bit, so they asked us to wait. We obliged, and then about 10 minutes later one of the guides came over apologizing that it would be about 10 more minutes. She did not come empty handed handed though. She brought a bottle of white port for us to taste. For a bribe like that I would wait an hour (as long as it came every 10 minutes.) I had never had white port before, but it reminded me of sherry.

Soon enough we were taken on our tour, along with an older couple from London. We learned of the different types of port (white, tawny, ruby) and also about the vintage and reserve ports. I found out that ruby and tawny ports are the same port, but the ruby is just younger and hasn´t changed color yet. Then we felt sufficiently prepared for our tasting. We were given a dryer white port, a Late Bottle Vintage, and a 10 year Tawny. Jonathan was trying to decide if he wanted to buy the regular tawny (which we had not tasted) and the LBV, so he asked the server to bring us some of the tawny too. She obliged, and we decided that I would buy the tawny and he would get the LBV. In the end we had tasted 5 ports, and decided what we needed now was an espresso. We stumbled along the long walk path to the bridge with our new English aquaintances, said goodbye to them, and drank outside along the riverfront. The rain began again, so we rushed back to the hostel for a nice siesta.

We woke up and decided to do a little bar hopping. Now don´t get the wrong idea, Porto is a very quiet city at night, so this was more akin to getting to know the locals than having a crazy time. We decided to have one beer per bar/cafe, and we visited 4 before the night was over. The 2nd, which, like all the bars, we happened to stumble across while wandering, was my favorite by far. We happened to be the only non-locals in there, but the sight of John Paul II and Our Lady of Fatima sitting above the liquor rack made me feel surprisingly comfortable. We ordered our beers at the bar, then sat down at a table in the back room. There were 3 old men sitting in there drinking and playing, what appeared to be, the most energetic game of dominos I have ever seen. Of course this was the one time I had been out of the hostel that I decided not to bring my camera. There would have been some great pictures of these guys.

That was it for the night, and we decided that it would be our final night in Porto. We would catch the 11:30 train, with Jonathan getting off at Coimbra, and me staying on til the last stop, in Lisbon.