We bid a VERY early morning goodbye to Terceira (9am flights wait for no man…or lady!) and landed back in Lisbon with a few hours to kill before our train to Porto. After reviewing all the near by options, we decided to head to the near by Oceanarium to kill an hour or two. Or so we thought. You see, here’s the thing about Lisbon airport… it’s taxi line is INSANE. When we got there, it snaked through 3 switchbacks, ran the entire length of the remaining terminal and had started to wrap around the building. And here we were with a schedule! However, we’d learned from our first time through this chaos that the metro a great (and line-less) alternative, so we hustled over…only to find that it was randomly closed!? Even the Portuguese seemed confused by it’s closure, which helped our pride, but didn’t get us any closer to the aquarium and time was a tickin’! Not to be thwarted by an inexplicably closed metro, we looked up and settled on a bus option, hiked the block to catch it, and then sat down to wait. And wait. And wait. 25 minutes later it arrived and while it was pretty packed, we were at the front of the line and our chances looked good, despite our big bags. That is, until people completely disrespected the queueing process and proceeded to use their superior nimbleness and aggressive to cut us off at the pass. Needless to say, we were mildly irked at this point.
With no alternative, and the timing of our train now potentially a concerned we hauled our gear back to the airport terminal, plopped ourselves in line and prepared ourseleves for what would surely be a several hour ordeal. Only… we got through the cab line in <30 minutes! It was deceptively fast moving for such a long line, and we ended up spending more time trying the alternatives – D’oh! Regardless we’d wasted most of our Aquarium time in the hunt for good transportation, were hot, hungry and a wee bit cranky, so we decided that discretion was the better part of valor here, and headed to the station where we caught our train (without issues, so at least some public transit was working!)
We napped, read and otherwise amused ourselves on the 3 hour train to Porto, got completely turned about in the station, finally found a cab and made it to our apartment. In a day filled with planes, trains and automobiles, I think we can safely say it was Transportation – many, Jess & Grant – 0.
However, the best part of getting to our apartment wasn’t that it meant no more traveling, or that it had glorious A/C. It was that we had once again lucked out and booked ourselves a room with amazing views:
View from our window / tiny balcony!
Once we finally managed to tear ourselves away from the scenery, we got oursleves cleaned up and headed out for an epic dinner at a place called Cantinho do Avillez. We were already a bit hungry and this place had a great rep so we were anxious to try it by the time we stumbled in around 8:30. However, there were no seats to be had until 10pm! While Grant considered his options, I’d already decided it was this or starvation, insisted we take the reservation and then force marched us through the streets of town until we were both cranky and starving. We did take some great photos though.
The Porto train station is beautifully lit up at night
When we finally were seated, we needed no aperitifs but were determined to do things right, so while I had a boring Lillet Rose, Grant had an AMAZING gin and tonic made with Gin Sul – a Portuguese based gin that is distilled in Germany and has a great orange aftertaste. We both liked it so much we were determined to bring home a bottle, as it cannot yet be bought in the states!
We also had great breads & spreads, including an amazing housemade truffle butter with sea salt. We were so hungry we ate two whole tins of the spread and baskets of bread. We couldn’t help ourselves – it was that good!
We then moved on to dinner – Grant ordering a Cod-based dish that had “exploding olives” which were small, soft gelatin balls filled with olive flavored liquid which exploded in your mouth – so fun and so good!
I had scallops that were cooked to perfection on a bed of saffron and lemon risotto – in a word: delish!
We saved the best thing for last however: a Hazelnut dessert made of tiers of mouse of different densities, topped with sea salt and nougat bits paired with port and espresso. It was over far too soon, to say the least!
As it was already after midnight by the time dinner was over, we decided to do the rational thing and head back to the apartment, where we oggled the city by night, climbed into the most comfortable bed we’ve had all trip and promptly passed out. We had found heaven on earth, and it’s in Porto!
– J & G