Counting the days to leave, Petr wanted to still work, up to the day before our flight and I had to make sure we sold or donated all the things we didn’t need (I will write another post with all the lessons I learned out of this stressful situation we put ourselves in).
12th of March, early morning we took our backpacks and made our way to the airport knowing that all the 10 days we are going to spend in Porto, is going to rain. We booked our first couple of days in the most annoying Airbnb we could have ever chosen, okay maybe not the worse one, but it was pretty bad. We believe it had rats in one of the walk in wardrobes, we could hear them at night when the house was in silence, luckily we did not see any in the room. Also we had to go two floors down, to get to the dirty bathroom and an overflowing shower. Not forgetting the kid, that in the middle of the night started to scream and cry, making us wondering if that is what we have to expect out of the parenting stage of our life.
After deciding to book a hostel (closer to the center) this time, instead of an Airbnb, our time in Porto got better and better. We explored every inch of the city and walk around until our feet start hurting. We stared at blue walls full of art, at tourists running up and down the same streets everyday from point to point in the city, we walked across bridges and walked up hills, under heavy rain with our ponchos, that didn’t help us to stay dry. We had coffee by the river and Petr ate pastéis de nata for the first time, and absolutely loved it, how not to? After the rain, the sun shined over the city and the river, the painted houses glowed so much that it took my breath away. That feeling of happiness made so much sense, we let go the things that stressed us out, that we didn’t want to do any longer and we slowed down our pace, we looked up and admired everything before us.
We created new routines, which included our favourite part, eating fish at the Bolhao Market, in one of the two restaurants in the market and the one I always recommend to everyone. I was constantly craving fish and could not think about any other type of food. Now the market is closed, it’s under reconstruction for a period of two years, but our favourite restaurant it’s still open somewhere around the same streets. Unfortunately I don’t know the exact address.
We needed things to do everyday, but somehow studying or working wasn’t as exiting as exploring the city. One of the days, controlled by our consumerism mentality, we decided to walk around the city, to every vintage shop we could find and by our surprise there are a lot of them. We did fall in love with the last one we visited, the shop is called Mon Père Vintage, if you go to Porto for a bit longer than 4 days, definitely go to see it.
We were so sad to leave Porto, but we knew that we will go back and of course, eat more fish.
Raluca