After a sleep in and a late breakfast, we ventured towards the Douro River. We are situated in Vila Nova de Gaia (just Gaia to the locals) which is like a large suburb (maybe it’s a city in its’ own right?) on the southside of Porto. Our apartment is halfway between two of the six bridges in Porto. Today we walked to the river and took a left towards the ocean. It was a sunny 16-18 degrees all day, which made perfect walking weather.

The waterfront of Porto/Gaia is just gorgeous; tiny cobblestone streets weave their way down to the water. The buildings are a mix of old and new, but there’s plenty of charm and character and it’s not lost on any of us.

After about 45 mins of walking, we looked around for gelato or something snack-worthy. Instead, we found a number of seafood restaurants with an open-air BBQ set-up. We stopped at one that wasn’t too crowded and had a menu with some English sub-titles. As seems to be the way here, we sat ourselves down at a table of our own choice. The waiter was around quickly with menus and he did, thankfully, speak enough English for us to order our meals. We ordered half serves (‘half-dose’ in Portugal) but they were full serves in our opinions!

Pepper steak (Rod), cod (Hamish) and sardines (me) are ordered – I’m keen to see our fish come off the open-air BBQ. Drinks consist of Fanta for Hamish, which we’ve found is not at all like the sickly-sweet drink at home and tastes a little like orange/mango mineral water, and red wine sangria for Rod and I.

The three of us enjoyed a leisurely lunch and marveled at how lucky we are to be in Portugal on this gorgeous winter day.

Hamish has really impressed us both with his new found ability to walk long distances; we easily covered 7-8 km today and not one ‘are we there yet’ or complaint was heard. Also, he’s eaten a range of new foods, including nearly 2 of my sardines, the tiny soft fish bones didn’t bother him at all (I can think of stacks of people who wouldn’t enjoy those fish). Hamish said he really enjoyed today, because it was: “sunny and not cold – lunch was pretty good”, although he preferred the sardines to the cod he ordered (he said the skin was chewy).

We’re here until Saturday – spending a bit of time tonight planning out the rest of the week, including New Year’s Eve (stay in or go out?). Our apartment is perfectly situated for uninterrupted views of the fireworks over the river, so staying in might be more pleasurable than negotiating the crowds.