The past week I've been in Portugal for Semana Santa and I just got back last night, although I'm asking myself did I really go to Portgual since I'm pretty sure I heard just as much Spanish spoken as I did Portuguese. The first city I went to was Porto, in the north of Portugal. It's known for it's wine, port, hence the name. I took a metro from the airport into the city and I had directions to the city, but after that the directions that the hostel had given were awful. You had to go down more streets than it said and I stopped and asked this guy and he was nice enough to look on the internet for the address since I was on the street, I just couldn't find the building. I finally found it and after I checked in I went and wandered around for a bit since it was later in the evening. The next day I went to some churches (there will always be a church to visit in Europe) and this palace that used to be the stock exchange in Porto, but now they only have it in Lisbon. Then I headed across the river to go to a winery. I was walking when I saw this girl explaining to two guys about a river cruise and a winery visit for only ten euros. I had been in line for a river cruise earlier that was for ten euros, but the time changed for it so I left. This was even better so I got a ticket and went to find the winery. Portugal has to be the hilliest country I have ever been to. Every single city I visited had huge hills to climb. So I climbed up another hill and after asking for directions I finally found the winery. The English tour started in a half an hour so I had to wait around, but as soon as you got there they gave you a white port to try. The port was just ok - not as good as a rioja, but definitely better than sherry. There were a lot of people there when I first got there, but they were for the Portuguese tour so once they cleared out it was only me and two other girls from Korea until more arrived. I found out that they had walked the Camino de Santiago, a walk in northern Spain to the city of Santiago de Compostela. The walk can start in various cities, from the Navarra region of Spain to a small French city on the border of France and Portugal. I actually read a book before I left about a German man's journey on the camino. It's supposed to be grueling and people can average anywhere from 15-30 kilometers per day. Finally the wine tour started and it was informative albeit a little short, but after it was over we had another sample of port, this time a red one which was better than the white. After the wine tour I went on the river cruise which was peaceful and then I just walked some more around the city.
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| At the winery in Porto |
The next place I went to was Braga. I had planned on going here before I found out it was the biggest place in Portugal for the Semana Santa celebrations, but really the processions were the highlight of Braga. Otherwise it was a smaller town filled with churches and basically only churches to see. I was able to catch the morning procession, a very short one to the Cathedral, where they held palms and they carried this funky thing that looked like a mini circus tent. I'm not sure what the purpose of that was, but at this procession there weren't as many people.
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| Morning procession in Braga |
The afternoon procession went throughout the main center of Braga and it had a lot more people in it along with solemn music. The main piece was Jesus carrying the cross which several men carried. It ended at one of the churches with a priest speaking and then they brought out Mary. The procession continued, but it had already been an hour since it first started so I left.
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Two little boys in the procession
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Besides the processions Braga had this beautiful garden filled with amazing flowers. They didn't have any hostels in Braga so I stayed at a place that was nicer than a hostel, but not quite as nice as a hotel. The best part: they had tv stations in English including the BBC World News. The highlight though was watching Glee (the Sexy Episode), the end of ultimate Cake Off and an episode of Cake Boss (he goes to Rome to make a cake). I was in heaven. Or English tv heaven at least.
The next day I took a side trip to Guimaraes, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and overall overrated. It was supposed to have this castle (it did) and these cable cars that went up and overlooked the city (it did), but the castle basically just the foundation and it took me forever to find the cable cars. Actually it took me forever to find a lot of things including a map just to get around the city and lets not forget Portugal is the country of hills.
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| The castle in Guimaraes |
