The title for this post is quite butchered, but on the way from the park to our next destination, Porto, we had to stop in Guimaraes (pronounced G-we-ma-re-ash), which is close enough if you try to add in "Amelia".
Whatever, made sense at the time.
Guimaraes is the oldest city in Portugal and is considered its birthplace. Their king was born here, and there is so much history in this old city!
First thing's first. By the time we checked out (took our time) and drove through the mountains, it was lunch time. So we bee lined for the old town square, picked the most touristy place, obviously, and grabbed lunch. I will spare you the drama of us trying to get the table and the kids we almost punched out. Hangry, we ordered the quintessential Guimaraes dish: the Francesinhas sandwhich. You think the monte carlo is awesome? The cuban? A club? omg. This was... intense.
Every recipe I saw online states it's hard and you'll never make one comparable to the original in a local restaurant and all the ones we had after this, indeed, differed. But they were all.... intense.
The short version: It's a layered sandwich consisting of toasted white bread, layer of cheese, ham, STEAK, sausages (some places used hot dogs, others used sausages), closed up with another slice toast. Repeat. Topped off with a fried egg, cover in more cheese, DRENCHED in this gravy-like sauce of wine, brandy, port, chicken stock, garlic, tomato, whatever spices, and milk for creaminess and all served on a bed of fries.
W. T. F. It sounds overwhelming, and it absolutely was, but omg was it ever good.
After lunch, we hiked over to the palace where the Portuguese king was born and introduced Chubz to some flowers where she went from hesitant, to I couldn't pull her off.
I cannot explain what got into Justin, but he decided to make it his life mission to Spiderman the castle wall. We spent way too long killing time here watching this tool get his fingers stuck in between the stones.
We wandered around a bit more and made our way back to the car to head over to Porto - our most sought after destination of this trip. And we were not disappointed.