Porto, Portugal

Wow wee this is the business! What an amazing old city, so beautiful with its colourful houses and massive stone churches hugging both banks of the river Douro. Narrow winding streets up and down with the family washing hanging between the buildings. Everyone's business in open view. Better hang your pretty underwear inside else everyone knows what you got up to last night! We are staying in a twin room at the Magnolia Hostel, 4 floors up, no lift!! Lucky I have grey hair cos the lovely young man saw me as a dear old lady and carried my extremely heavy suitcase up for me. Will he carry it down for me at 4am tomorrow? Ha ha, don't think I could be so lucky!! We have walked the city centre, both sides of the river, got the hop on hop off bus round the entire major city and outskirts, cruised the river, seen the 6 bridges from all angles, visited cathedrals and lesser churches, drunk espresso on the riverside and everywhere else, eaten Pastis de Nata whenever possible (egg custard in a filo pastry case, simply the most delicious pastry I've ever eaten and I don't like sweet things usually!!). The population here is much older than elsewhere so many old men are seen sitting in the Placa (square) arguing and talking bull at the top of their voices. All while their women are at the 'local laundry' handwashing sheets and towels in massive stone tubs. Whilst so traditional in many ways,the flip side is the graffiti everywhere. No wall is sacred! We leave here tomorrow. We are looking forward to a decent bed. We have moved our mattresses to the floor to try and be more comfortable, hasn't worked but at least the beds do not express displeasure (squeak) every time we turn over!! We went looking for a place I had been told to go to to have a glass of port while we watch the sun set. We walked up lanes so narrow and had to squeeze our bodies against the stone walls to let buses pass, terrifying. All cobblestones so our feet were protesting a lot! Finally gave up and walked down the other side through paths that had lost their cobbles, little more than goat tracks really. What fun we have when we get lost! Found a place down the bottom to have my white port (determined that we'd earnt it) and rested our poor feet! Our free bus was in bed so we dipped into our budget and got a taxi home, €8. He told us the place we'd been looking for closed in January! At least now Jules believes that I wasn't sending us on a wild goose chase! (even if we were on the wrong side of the river, sssssh). Caught up with Tricia and Graham our first 2 nights in Porto before they ventured to Lisbon. How nice to have quality time with them. Darren, Annette and Craig, they send you their love. Hopefully have WIFI in Umbria and will blog a bit more often if time permits. Hope you are all well.xx