Porto & the Batalha Monastery, Portugal
/As our Uber drove us from the Lisbon airport to our AirBnb, I couldn't help but stare out the window at the gorgeous ceramic tile covering the front of most buildings. The bright colors and patterns seemed to convey a sense of fun and joy that was less serious than Italy's vibe.
Due to a rental car scheduling snafu, we stayed a single night in Lisbon before we were able to pick up our rental car and head to Porto. For dinner, we were both craving Chinese food, and thought we should discover Portugal's take on it. We Googled, and of course found a place nearby that had almost perfect ratings. But when reading the comments we were a little bit nervous. Things like, Almost impossible to find, but so happy we did! And, As the name say you need to know where is it! And my personal favorite, it's just an apartment where the walls have been knocked down.
When we walked to the listed address we didn't see a restaurant, so we walked back and forth a few times before confirming that YES, we were actually at number 9. An open door led to a graffiti-covered stairwell, and we bravely went up, though I couldn't imagine what kind of restaurant would have no sign and exist in such a scary place. But on the second floor landing we glanced through an open door to see a large room with folding tables and chairs. It looked like an Elks Club hall before anyone had arrived. A boy came and put a menu and a piece of paper with a pencil on our table, and we wrote down the number of each dish we wanted. Dinner was AMAZING. We had a huge vat of soup, about 30 dumplings, 4 beers, and a pork dish. The cost? 17 euro. :) Amazing!
The following day we drove to Porto, which was just a few hours from Lisbon. We spent a lot of time relaxing during our stay, mainly wandering around and looking at the beautiful tiles and facades of the city. We visited the beautiful Contemporary Art Museum and the adjoining gardens. A Duoro river boat cruise allowed us to see the seven bridges of Porto, which connect its North bank to the South. And of course, we tried port wine, which originally comes from Porto. If you've never had it before, you should give it a try!
On our way back to Lisbon we visited Batalha Monastery. It's an amazing example of Late Gothic architecture.
After that, we scurried to Lisbon to meet up with Chuck's brother Luke!
