Ports in Portugal with Port. (Lisbon and Oporto)

August 4-5, 2012
Portugal

Our arrival in Portugal would mark the halfway point in our journey away from the Baltic Sea.  From here we would turn around and go right back where we come from, hitting many of the same ports that we did on the way down, and a few new ones here and there.

Today's port was Lisbon, the capital.  Being an embarkation day, my free time was cut in half, but I got of the ship, walked around and experienced what I could.

What struck me the most is how compacted everything seemed to be in comparison to Spain, which we had just come from.  The streets were smaller, the buildings were taller.  They just seemed to be able to fit more in.

Unfortunately, the other thing I noticed about Portugal was that if you were walking the wrong direction, you could tell because the streets would start to smell like urine.  If you ever get off a ship in Portugal, walk left, not right.  Everything is left.  To the right are streets of pee.

Welcome to Portugal.  We have swords and spears.

Remember, from here turn left, not right.

On my quest to find the center of town, I came across some pretty interesting places.  Take this one for example.  Now, I don't speak Portuguese, but it's a Romance language with many cognates in Spanish and Italian, and my latin background tell me that this says, "World of Fat People."  Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

After leaving fatland, I walked for about another 15 minutes and found the center of town.  It was all in all about a half an hour's walk from the ship.

The "prove I found it" photo.

This guy was also there.

 And here's a 360° panorama of the square in the middle of Lisbon.

Click and look at this larger.

It may look like we're sailing away pretty early in these next pictures, but it's summer still and that means lots of sunlight.  I'd say these pictures were taken around 6pm.  

Meanwhile, back in San Francisco.

Actually still in Portugal

Jesus prepping for a swan dive.

The very next day we were in Oporto.  This place was a little more spaced out.  You could say that the people here had more breathing room than their relatives in Lisbon.

A funny thing about the name of this city.  Oporto is famous for Port wine.  That's why it is called Port wine in the first place.  Because of Port wine comes from the grapes of the Douro valley.  Also, the fermentation process is stopped halfway through, and more sugar is added.  This does two things, it significantly raises the sweetness, and it doubles the alcohol level.  For this reason I prefer Port to regular wine.

So why, "Oporto" instead of just "Porto?"  Attracted by the prospects of making port wine, many English speakers immigrated to this region.  In Portuguese, the word "Porto" has three meanings:
1) The Port where ships dock.
2) The type of sweet strong wine they make.
3) The name of the city.

English speakers, in their attempts to assimilate and learn Portuguese quickly noticed that the syllable "O" was placed before Porto only when they were saying, "I'm going to Porto."  So, the English mistook the word "to" and attached it to the name Porto, and started calling the city Oporto.  No doubt, the Portuguese thought this was weird, but they must not have spoken up very loudly because look what happened.  The name stuck.  Let that be a lesson to you.  I you don't correct something, people are going to think you're okay with it, and it will end up on written on English maps for hundreds of years even if it's not how you write it yourself.

Back to the tour.  First of all, this church was incredible.

Just wow.

 Right outside is the Bishop's Palace.

Not bad for a church job.

And here's a 180° panorama with the Bishop's Palace on the left and the church behind.

Immediately following the church and Bishop's Palace we got on a little boat and took a tour of the river.  It's always funny to me when people get off a ship, only to get right back on a boat.  Oh well.

Turns out there was actually some pretty cool stuff that you could only see by boat along the river.

Take for example this yet-another-bridge-by-Gustav-Eiffel.

And then this other bridge, by some other guy.

But the highlight was definitely this ooooooold monastery.  Sadly, it's not used as a monastery anymore.  Believe it or not, it's actually now used as a barracks by the government.  But, they still keep it intact and preserve it.  And that's kind of nice.

Sasha, Courtney, and I got to leave the guests up top and hang out down below.  It was nice to take a break from babysitting.

That's right.  We're professional babysitters.

Although looking at this monastery was the highlight of the river cruise, the highlight of the entire tour was what was coming next: a visit to Graham's Port Winery, or portery, or...what's the word that you use there?  The place where they make Port.

Thirsty yet?

Another great finish to another great day.