Porto

We left Lisbon heading for Porto, where once we got in had to get to our hotel...only we didnt have directions, and the tourism office said to just walk up the street..easy to say when you arent lugging about 50 kg of weight in two suitcases. Well I decided I was going to walk since I was done taking taxi cabs, hwo were just out to rip me off...and I was adament about it. So we walked about 2/3rds of the way and jessica was aching, and I felt bad...I didnt want to put my stubberness ahead of my wifes health, so I gave in and hailed a cab. Knowing we were only needign to go up the street, couldnt have been more than 5 minutes, we got int he cab. But then according my suspicions, and worst fears, the cab driver starts making a right away from the street we need to go on, instead of a left going north!!!

I was like you are going the worng way, so he pulls over and says, oh I thought you wanted to go to this street, pointing to another street I had written. I said to him the two streets are together, why would you go the opposite direction? Well He basically drove all teh way back down the hill from which we had JUST walked adn finally made a U-turn and went back up the hill northbound. We get to the street and instead of making a left he makes a right. Now even jessica is gettign pissed, so we tell the driver to just stop there adn we will walk the rest of the way, (half a block), but no he doesnt listen, he starts backing up inches at a time, sooooo slowly running the meter even more!!!

He backs up onto a street turns the car around and makes the left going north again. He is driving soooo slow I could have just walked the entire way alone faster even with the bags!. He gets in front fo teh hotel, and continues to drive, and jessica and I are like stop the hotel is here...finally I start to open the door and he stops the car. I pay him and he helps himself to a tip, not giving me my change. I asked for the change but he suddenly didnt understand my english....gotta love that kinda crap.

Well we go to the hotel, I am fuming by now, and they ask me for my last name, I tell them goldberg, and she says we dotn have such a reservation. So I take out my passport, and show them my last name is goldberg, she looks and says no sorry we dont have a goldberg reservation. So I calmly explained that they better have my reservation or there will be hell to pay. Well then the girl says we have a reservation for Jessica goldberg. Im like thats my wife. She says but your passport says Yehuda Goldberg. I told her, you asked my last name!!!!

Anyways we put our stuff down and headed back into the city. We had a quick lunch and waited about an hour to go on the Porto Tourist buses. We went on one, and enjoyed the views adn information about porto, then took a boat toar that goes down the river near porto and meets the Atlantic ocean....Nice and cute, good views of the city. We started heading back from teh boat, and wanted to take a new roue. We saw a cable car, but it costed too much money adn we didnt have change. Well we could have walked around the mountain but instead we chose (not sure why or who made the final decision), but we walked up the stairs on the mountain until we hit the top. We saw stray cats, soem people looking through the garbage..(and found a new pair of panties)..and when we hit the top and realized we could have easily walked around the mountain in less time, we just laughed.

We decided we were going to walk up the hill back to our hotel at a slow pace and find somewhere to eat. At a small restaurant on the side fo the road, we sat down for dinner. Turns out its owned by a family for over 40 years, and the borther of the owner although originally portugese, has been living in missisauga for the last 40 years, and considers Canada his home before Portugal, even though he was born in portugal. The portions were big, and the food wasnt amazzing, but it was worth the money I think. We had good conversation, and he reccomended an excellant wine that went very well with my food.

We continued our walk back to the hotel and went to bed for the night, in our small hotel room.

When we woke up yesterday morning we enjoyed a breakfast as part of our room rate, The best hotel breakfast we have had yet..(our only one so far..lol) We then hopped on the tourist bus again this time heading to the other side of the river, to where the Port houses (wineries) are located. We hopped off the bus near where the main cellars are, adn walked around for a short while, until we found one that offered free tastign and a free tour. We started white port- didnt taste good, JEssica then wanted to try the Iced rose port, she almost vomited, and then we did the tour. After the tour, we got red port, and it tasted good, I downed the glass, and Jessica had only a a few sips. Since we arent crazy port drinkers, we opted not to buy a bottle, as we can buy Port in Toronto.

We had Lunch , hopped back on the bus, and finished the tour of the city Porto.