10:46:51 05/13/2022

Our last day in Porto, we decided to take it easier.  We started the day with a visit to the cathederal (Igreja Monumento de São Francisco), which is just across from our hotel.  Again this is a very large church, with ornate and intricate carvings, covered in gold leaf, or made from gold.  Visiting the museum we found it pretty standard for most european museums, artifacts from the church but this one has a crypt in the basement, nothing too creepy its just that there are a number of crypts under the floor and so we are litteraly walking over the dead.

Once we finished out visit to the church and museum, we went to see the Commercial Palace (Palácio da Bolsa).  To see this building we had to sign up for a 30 minute guided tour.  This is an interesting building because it was built as a palace but no one ever lived here, it was used strictly for commerce, its basically the central commercial exchange building for Portugal.  They rent out the rooms, or offices for businesses, or events such as conferences or even weddings.  Gustave Eiffel had an office here while he was engineering the bridges that he build here in Portugal.  He designed and built three, only one is here in Porto.

After our tour of the palace, we decided to take in the square across the palace, and then find some food.  We found a spot on the waterfront.

We met a couple from Prince George, BC touring Europe on their own.  We talked about where we had been and gave advice for getting around, the gentleman broke his hip prior to the trip. 

We then planned a river cruise.  They have 6 bridges that cross the Douro River.  The tour took us under 4 of the bridges, and close to the other two.  As we got near each bridge we were given some history about its construction and purpose.  There is one pedestrian only bridge, which used to be a train bridge, there is a team / pedestrian bridge, a new train bridge, and highway bridges.  The tour also pointed out points of interest along the shore.

After the river tour we took an Uber to Rua Santa Catarina, a pedestrian only shopping area.  We walked along the street xpecting local shops as Antonio had described, but really it was a mix of small restaurants, local shops and big name stores.  We really didn't find anything that interested us.  We then walked back to our hotel to take a break.

We were in the hotel common area resting our feet taking in the view of the river and watching people walk by, when an older lady tripped and fell face first into the concrete walk way, she bloodied her upper lip pretty bad, I think she was lucky not to have broken anything.

Krista did it again and found us a great restaurant for lunch.  This nice little place right around the corner from the hotel,  RC Restaurante.   We are so done with fish for a while and we're craving meat,  so we shared the rib cut for two with potatoes and veggies. We shared that with a bottle of wine,  then finished with a mix so dessert and some port, capping of the meal with some espresso.

We were also entertained during dinner with some Fado.  We had the traditional portuguese guitar and a classical guitar, accompanied by very good singers, first a man then a woman, both very good,  but the star of the show then came out an older gentlman in a traditional Coimbra cape, and senarinaded the ladies, he covered my head while he sang to Krista. 

He then sang a few other traditional songs.  Next the other male singer came back for a couple of songs, followed by the female singer and our older singer with an accordion.  They turned our dinner into an event.

Tomorrow we take the train to Lisbon.