Portugal Trip – Day 3 – Porto AM

On Sunday we left Lisbon for Porto where we would spend the rest of our time in Portugal. We packed up the room and headed down to breakfast. The breakfast buffet was included with the room and was fairly average. The fruits were canned and there were lots of pastries and breads.

The hotel called us a taxi (who charged us double what the receptionist said the cost should be) and we went to Oriente Station. After a short wait our train was announced, we eagerly found our platform and the right carriage and seats. We opted to go with the Alfa Pendular high speed train which gets to Porto in 2.5 hours

Pro-tip: Book direct through CP.pt and not Rail Europe or any of the other resellers. Only CP.pt can assign seats which are required.

The train dropped us at Campanhã Station which is a short taxi ride to our hotel A.S. 1829 Porto. The hotel is pretty new so the driver had not heard of it nor had other people we talked to later on the trip. Fortunately we were able to look up the address and it is on a popular street that he did know.

Once again we were too early to check in and left our bags at reception. This hotel has a proper lobby and reception area. Already more impressive than Teatro B&B.

We headed downhill towards the water and fell in love with the views. (Views were the thing to see on this trip!) The architecture in Porto reminded me more of most other European cities I’ve visited. Lisbon’s architecture was a bit more modern (70’s modern with European influence I would say).

We walked along the Porto side of the river and crossed to Gaia side for lunch. The more upscale restaurants seemed to be on the Gaia side. After so many Portuguese meals we were hoping to find something different and we found a Japanese restaurant right on the water. The weather was perfect as we sat in the sun, ate our lunch and enjoyed the river views.

Continue to Part 2