One thing to note about Porto is it's not a big city if you're looking at the main attractions. It's really about a few old churches, but mostly about the riverwalk, food, and even more so about... well... port.
Chubz could not have been getting any more vocal. Everywhere we went, if she was awake, she was fully narrating our trip to the amusement of onlookers. She had recently found her voice (not the crying kind), and felt she had to "ahhhhhhhhhhhhh" with every bounce from every step I took. It was unbelievably adorable and funny.
Porto is a stunning city. Old, quaint, but so beautiful with its maze of alleyways, cobblestones, hills, rivers, and shops.
Our first stop was lunch, and for someone who practically never has fast food, we HAD to make our way over to what may be the most lavish McDonald's on this planet. It's in an old train station and has chandeliers, statues, and it pretty friggin fancy. No idea how this made sense (maybe two wrongs do make a right!), but ordering a big Mac was the first time I could stomach food, and I could feel was the official turning point in me getting un-sick. It's now been 2 full weeks of no food for me aside from the occasional bite where I had to TRY the food but then regretted it. This.... this I did not regret.
Bonus points for McDonald's in Portugal, you can order a beer as part of your meal.
Today was the day we practically walked the entire downtown core and visited everything there was to see. Starting with this building:
It's only bizarre if you look closely. On one side the building is a monestry and the other is a convent. There are a few theories as to why the two churches were divided by one of the world's narrowest houses (3 foot wide, and was legit occupied). It is actually a law that two churches can't share a wall so one theory is that it was a rivalry of some sort, but the main theory was that this narrow house somehow, miraculously, kept the monks and the nuns from fraternizing. Because, clearly, if they chose to have done so, a 3 foot hole in the wall would've been the deciding factor in them not walking over....
It was also way hotter than we expected, and between wearing a furnace, and just not being in the same energetic frame of mind as we usually are upon travelling, we did a lot of stops at churches and cathedrals for their cooling aspects. And because they're just cool in general... and old... and cool... Aside from that, Porto is a stunning city, but many many stairs and hills.
And eventually we needed to stop walking, so we plopped our bums down at a little bar on the river where the owners were drinking at the table beside us. Pretty sure they drank and ate more than what they were making from the patrons, especially considering that with every refill we got, the pours got bigger and bigger until our last glass was practically at the rim. All for $2.50. Wat.
We went for dinner before heading back for the night as Dopey went from enthusiastic about figuring out high chairs, to.... less so.
