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Porto Revisited Part 2 — Shopping, Port, Sightseeing, and Advertising

Plan A for our second trip to Porto was to take a day trip into the Duoro Valley to see some of the wineries that make the country’s renowned drink.  However, we didn’t realize how far Porto was from the valley (about 2 hours by car).  A day trip was definitely an option, but after having spent a full day in a bus, neither of us was eager to spend 4 hours in a train (solo journey) or Van (group tour), so we decided to just enjoy the day in Porto and make another visit to the Port houses across the Duoro River in the Vila Nova de Gaia.

We did a bit of shopping (both window and the real kind) in the morning with a return trip to the Bolhão Market and the St. Catherine pedestrian street area.

The market in action
The modern Via Catarina mall (though you really can’t tell it’s a mall from the pedestrian-only street)
The multi-level Via Catarina
The top level of the mall

So after a hard morning of shopping, we thought we’d try our luck getting into one or more of the port houses in Vila Nova de Gaia.  The area was hopping, but we managed to try 2 new houses  — Taylor’s and Ramos Pinto. We had done a tour and tasting at Graham’s last year.

View of the Dom Luis I bridge that we crossed to go to the port houses and the Serra do Pilar monastery at the top of the hill
The entrance to Taylor’s
The sidewalk to the restaurant at Taylor’s
A view from the terrace at Taylor’s
The tasting room at Taylor’s where Bob and I split a glass of their 20 year tawny.
The view of the Dom Luis I bridge, the Duoro River, and Porto from Taylor’s
A sign at the entrance to Ramos Pinto based on one of their posters for which they are known
Some of the casks in the Ramos Pinto cellar — here we did the tour and tasting of two of their ports

Other photos from our time in Porto — 

Liked the mix of tile and ironwork on this cheese store and residential building
A busy square with typical Portugese buildings
A local church with an interesting display out front
And for something completely random — Bob decided to capture his first experience with a urinal with a video screen

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