What to do and what to visit at Porto in one day?

What to do and what to visit at Porto in one day?

The most common answer you will have when asking such question to a “tripeiro” is: “you can’t”.

“tripeiro” - the natives of Porto are known in Portuguese as "tripeiros"

You will understand that the answer results from loving too much the city and when you will visit it you will easily get the reason why, it’s a gorgeous city, very photogenic in fact.

However sometimes the reality is that we only have one day so we will have to cook with the potatoes we have.

By reducing the time to just one day we will have to select only a few places to go in a wide variety of interesting sites.

My suggestion for you is: a morning walk, a lunch with products from a local market and a monument/museum visit during the afternoon.

Does it seems like a plan?

Yes, it will be a busy day.

Morning walk in Porto:

Please download a map that will guide you on a walk where you can visit some of the most iconic sites in Porto. Please  print the map in a A3 format or use it in your smartphone as a pdf.

Is a 6,5Km (4mi) stroll, perfect for a sunny morning and it will leave you enough time to stop for pictures and a coffee on the way.

The suggested walk will take you to several spots where you can take panoramic photos from Porto.

In a future post I will describe what can you see during this walk by identifying the numbers you can see written on the map.

Lunch with products from a local market:

During your morning walk you can visit a market identified as number 3 on the map, is the Bulhão market.

There you will find fresh products like fruits and vegetables and around there you will also find some old traditional groceries shops. I’m sure you can get there plenty of items to arrange a snack for you.

Monument/museum visit:

During the afternoon I suggest you to visit one of the following monuments/museums:

Museu Soares dos Reis, Palácio da Bolsa, Torre dos Clérigos, Museum and Gardens of Jardins de Serralves or Casa da Música.

Enjoy your day and do not hesitate to send me an email you case you need to exchange some ideas.

David Monteiro

Link to the original source

Cape Roca - The westernmost point of Europe's mainland.

Have you ever been to the Europe's mainland westernmost point?

Quite close to Lisbon you will find some trails along the sea coast that will give you the sensation of “I’m at the end of Europe” and, in fact,  you are at the westernmost point of Europe mainland, the Cape Roca (38°46’49.59″N   9°29’56.19″W).

From the Cape Roca, or arriving here, you will find many walking trails and on each one with different kind of photo spots or interesting things to see.

Coming from the south you can find a XVII century fortress named Forte do Guincho, one of several military buildings that were part of the Portuguese coastal defensive line built after the revolution of Dec’1640 called “Restauração da Independência” – restoration of the independence.

An interesting flower to look for and to care for, is the Armeria pseudarmeria. This species is at risk of extinction both because tourists pick them up due to its beauty during blooming and also because it only grows along these cliffs, which is quite of a restricted area. Photo from PNSC (Parque Nacional Sintra-Cascais – Natural Park Sintra-Cascais).

Granite is king on this area, offering us magnificent cliffs often with more than 150m/492ft (+/-) high and with standalone rocks that looks like guardians of the coast, always searching for the enemy boats at the horizon.

The sun sets at the west so one can take amazing sunset photos from the Cape Roca or very impressive photographs of the waves hitting the rocks.

I usually come here with Portuguese guests that will participate in mountain hiking tours to get to know them better prepared while they walk the trail on the map posted here. Depending of what particular trail you will choose, you can have an easy or difficult trail.

Have fun,

David Monteiro

Location: Cape Roca, Portugal

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Walking on the Lousã's aqueduct - Portugal

A hidden aqueduct in the well preserved valley is a jewel and you can find that quite close to Lousã.

Water was always one of the most precious resources in the world and around here that not different.

In this case water's value shows itself by the power it has to produce electricity with its weight when falling from a certain height … simple. But, to have that in this narrow steep valley, a small aqueduct was built to conduct the water along the valley keeping the altitude as much as possible until the right place.

The result was a beautiful two miles aqueduct in the middle of the valley where one can walk.

How to access to the aqueduct? It's not too easy but I can think about to nice ways to do it:

1. Starting from Senhora da Piedade (Lousã) it's possible to find a single trail that will take us to a small village called Talasnal. At this village we can taste a small cake called Talasnico e find the trail down to the aqueduct walking towards down the valley. The trail will last for (+/-) 150m and after that it will be walking across the bushes. Always walking down you can not miss the aqueduct and after finding it is to follow it until the trail that will take us back to the starting point.
2. There is an entrance to the aqueduct from the EN236 road at N40° 05.470' W8° 12.814'. From Lousã you can take a cab until the spot, find the aqueduct and walk back.

Have fun.

David Monteiro

Location: Lousã, Portugal
Please check the original article at my blog in Wordpress