Portugal Days Eleven – Twelve: Night Sky Magic, A Hole in One and The Best Pastel I Ate in Portugal (Porto)

Another day in Porto and again we made our way to the waterfront by taking a new route down tiny Portuguese side streets. Much to L’s delight, the boardwalk was lined with fisherman. He sidled up to one who kindly let us watch him catch some fish. The day was off to an excellent start!

En route from Gaia to Porto, we stopped by O Mundo Fantástico das Sardinhas Portuguesas. Or, more plainly: a sardine shop. This is a very touristy destination, but it was fun to walk through. You can buy tinned sardines labelled with your birth year that come with some cool facts about that particular year (I was a little surprised Taylor Swift wasn’t mentioned on 1989’s tin). It was a fun place to visit, even if we didn’t buy anything.

We got one child a churro. This was interesting. One child chose to order the type of churro the other child wanted to order and in what crazy universe could I possibly think both children could order the same churro? They both wanted the same kind but one child decided they’d rather have no churro over being forced to watch their sibling eat the same flavour of churro. KIDS! I can assure you the hunger strike didn’t last long, but that particular child didn’t end up getting a churro. Lesson learned? Maybe?

Food woes in the rearview mirror, we tried to visit a few different viewpoints of the city. We had trouble navigating some obscure online directions and ended up abandoning the search and just taking the top pedestrian path of the bridge. It offers a great perspective of the city, though it would not be an ideal spot if you’re afraid of heights. The bridge really shakes when the electric tram passes over the top!

At this point the kids were anxious to get a few more souvenirs. A’s eyes lit up when she spotted mini cacti candles (that also smelled amazing) at a market. And yes, this is the souvenir that broke, prompting my super glue “incident.”

Next, we wound our way up to the other end of the city to Jardins do Palácio de Cristal. These are lovely palace gardens with great views of the city and off-tether wildlife. Chickens, ducks, and peacocks wander freely. The kids really enjoyed this space, and L managed to catch a frog (of course he did). There was a giant book fair happening this day as well, so one part of the park was packed with vendors. It was nice to see so many people out buying/celebrating books.

The highlight of the gardens was discovering a little tower lookoff. I had never come across any mention of it when I was planning our trip, but it gave incredible views of the city. And it was fun for the kids since it was reminiscent of a castle.

More side streets, more wandering, and an impromptu stop at Castro bakery which ended up being my #1 pastel (singular = pastel; plural = pastéis) from our time in Portugal. SO GOOD!!! 

Our next stop was the Centro Portugues de Fotografia (a photography museum) which is housed in the former Relação Prison. It had free entry; the exhibitions were okay – the one dedicated to mug shots was quite fascinating – but it wasn’t overly engaging for the kids and we didn’t stay long. The best part of the museum was getting to see the architecture of the prison. It was beautiful!

Everyone was tired (lots of walking + heat) so we navigated to a big grocery store and stocked up on food supplies! By mid-afternoon we were home. The kids enjoyed some screen time (Portuguese cooking shows…in Portuguese) while John and I took a nap. This felt SOOO good.

On our way down to the waterfront earlier in the day we had came across an isolated spot that offered stunning views of the city. We dropped a pin and discussed visiting it at sunset to see the city lights. With some post-nap energy we pulled together a fruit/veggie/chips/sandwiches picnic supper and walked a few minutes to our hidden outpost which, in addition to perfect views, had benches where we could sit and spread out our food. We had the area to ourselves and spent a magical hour watching the sky morph from hues of red and purple until everything was dusky and the scene started to twinkle. This was one of our highlights from Porto and we didn’t have to spend a penny.

DAY TWELVE

Our last day in Porto. What to do? We had originally planned on renting a car for a day trip to the oldest working lighthouse in the world in Northern Spain. It would have been amazing, but it also would have required about 8 hours of driving which seemed like too much car time at this point in our trip.

I still had the nagging feeling I’d been cheated out of a good view of the lighthouse in Foz, so we hired a Bolt and navigated to the town. In some internet wandering the night before, I discovered there was a mini golf course nearby. So that’s where we headed first – Minigolfe da Foz do Douro.

Technically we played Peter Golf, which is like North American mini-golf, since the “mini-golf” course was hosting a tournament. This was such a hit with the kids. Very inexpensive (€9 total for our whole family to play 18 holes), friendly staff, and an engaging and unique course – highly recommend!

After finishing the golf course, we walked through a local market and bought a hodge podge of items for a seaside picnic. The tide was out so the waves weren’t quite as impressive, but there was no fog!

We walked for a bit along the beaches, and then waited for over half an hour (in the very hot sun, I might add) to catch one of Portugal’s iconic trams. The lineups for a seat on these trams are outrageous, but the one stop in Porto that is generally accessible is the end of the track in Foz. We were first in line and really enjoyed the trip. That said, it is wayyyy more expensive than other forms of public transit if you don’t have a transit pass, so buying tickets for the tram wasn’t really about the transportation side of things (it would have been a lot cheaper to hire a Bolt), but more about getting an “authentic” – sort of, because the trams are so busy it’s primarily tourists who use them – experience.

By this point in the day everyone was pretty hot and tired, so we walked slowly home from the tram stop. It ended up being an eventful journey. L wanted to swing by the waterfront to see if any fish were hanging around the edge and there happened to be giant schools, including one with an albino fish. We finished off our time on the Porto side by watching more daredevils (and, perhaps, law-breakers?) jump off the Dom Luís Bridge. It’s a long way down!

We had picked the kids up supper at McDonalds in Porto, but on the walk home John spotted a stall that was cooking crepes over a wood fire. Very cool! So we got one for us to split and headed home. En route, the kids asked if we take the food to our “private lookoff” for another nighttime picnic. I was THRILLED they weren’t asking to spend their last night in Porto vegging in front of the TV. We popped back to the apartment (where they vegged in front of the TV until sunset), and then we packed up our little picnic supper and headed off. Once again, the views were incredible and, once again, we had this fabulous spot all to ourselves – save for a black cat with what sounded like a pretty horrific hairball and a seagull who was warily eyeing said cat.

And that was the end of our adventures in Porto.

Your turn. When was the last time you ate a meal outside, picnic-style? What’s your favourite mode of transportation? Have you ever played mini-golf?