Day Trippin’ From Porto
Compared to the US, Portugal is small. There are about 11 million people who live here, with over 4 million of those in the Lisbon and Porto metropolitan areas. For comparison, that is about the size of Indiana from a land mass perspective, and the size of Georgia from a population perspective. The great news is that the train network is good, allowing for lots of day trips! We took three day trips from Porto: The Duoro Valley, Lisbon, and Braga.
The Douro Valley
Our day in the Duoro Valley was through a guided tour. While you could do it yourself via train from Porto to Pinhão, we chose this Airbnb Experience tour so that we could get the full experience and simply relax, enjoy the scenery and the wine! Most of the tours you’ll find on GetYourGuide, Viator, or Airbnb are similar and involve travel by SUV/Van into the valley, a boat ride on the river, and visits to 2-3 estates for tasting including a lunch. Ours was $136 per person, and we all thought it was well worth the money. As often happens when you travel during the off season, the weather was not our friend. It was cloudy all morning, and while we were at the final estate and having lunch it absolutely poured. But on the plus side, there were only 3 tours done by this company on this day. They told us that during the peak season (summer) there are often 8-10 tours going at once! We shared our tour with one other group of four Americans and it was great to get to know them.
We started off in the center of Porto, where we met our driver Luis and the other groups. From there, we drove about 90 minutes into the Duoro Valley. Most of the ride was on motorways, but as we neared the location for our boat ride we exited the motorway and followed the river. Our boatride lasted about an hour, and the crew was excellent! We had our first taste of Duoro wines, a spumante (sparkling wine) that was wonderful, and was accompanied by a charcuterie tray. Similar to Spain, the Portguese loved smoked meats, particularly pork, and we are here for it! On the boat ride, our guide explained the history of port wine and the Duoro Valley. We learned that the Duoro Valley is the oldest demarcated wine region in the world! Who knew?
The boat ride came to an end just in time as the rain started to set in! We then drove up into the hills to visit our first estate: Quinto do Beija (Kiss Winery!). This is a 100 year old estate. They opened to the public in 2015 and now do tours and tastings. We had a fantastic guide named Pedro who might have been practicing to be a stand up comedian! At the winery, we tasted three DOC table wines (a white and two reds) and 3 ports (white, tawny, and ruby). It was fun learning about the process to make wine and port, and they even let our group climb inside of a giant wine cask!
The view from the inside of the cask. Eric and Chad climbed through that little doorway!
From there, we headed to the winery of our tour group. But on the way, we learned about cork! Did you know that Portugal is the worlds largest producer of cork? And did you know that cork actually comes from a Cork Oak tree? I had no idea! It’s fascinating. There are cork trees all through Portugal and they are marked with numbers. That’s how they know what year they last harvested the cork! The first two harvests can’t be used for wine corks. But after that, they can harvest it every nine years. It is mind blowing to think of how they can possibly have enough trees to keep up with wine production, not to mention other uses like insulation!! All over Portugal you’ll see souvenir shops and stores selling cork products…purses, trivets, wallets, and more. When we asked our guide about screw top wine bottles, the look of disgust on his face was real. They are very serious about their cork!
At our last stop, the estate of our tour company, they have built a large visitor center. We came together with the other two groups for an incredible lunch, made by the owners wife. Pumpkin soup, roast and vegetables, and pear cake…each accompanied by different wines and finished off with port. On this cool and rainy day the comfort food hit the spot! Finally, it was time to return back to Porto. We all were sleepy after a long day of wine and port!
We would highly recommend this day trip, even if you are only in Porto for a few days. Make time to get out to the countryside and learn about the passion the Portuguese have for their wine, their port and their land!
Lisbon
Unfortunately, after an amazing 5 days, it was time for Amy and Chad to head back to Lisbon for their flight home on Tuesday. We decided to accompany them and spend the day in Lisbon. It is super easy to get from Porto to Lisbon via the AP train (the fast train). We Ubered to the train station and the caught the early morning train into Lisbon.
Eric and I and the boys had been to Lisbon back in December of 2022 when the boys came to visit us in London. So while we had a sense of how to navigate the city, we decided our best bet to show it to Amy and Chad in one day was to do a Tuk Tuk tour. And it was a great idea!
There are tons of companies that run Tuk Tuk tours in Lisbon. Our guide Pedro was awesome! He picked us up at Amy and Chad’s hotel for a 2 hour tour of Old Town Lisbon. His english was perfect, and he took us to just the right spots to see stunning views of the city. A little history lesson….most of Lisbon isn’t that old due to a major earthquake and subsequent tidal wave in 1755. Much of the original parts of the city were destroyed then. Even the castle, which looks to be medieval was built 60 years ago by the dictator who wanted to recreate the original castle and city walls! A few key buildings survived, most notably the Sé de Lisboa (Cathedral of Lisbon) which was started in the 13th century!
We had a fantastic time riding through the seven hills of the city with Pedro. This city is hilly! It reminds me a lot of San Fransisco with the colorful buildings built on the hillside and the old fashioned trolleys taking visitors up the hills. Pedro also showed us some amazing street art! We’d definitely recommend a Tuk Tuk tour if you are short on time or have mobility issues. It’s a much more personal way to see the city compared to a Hop On Hop Off bus.
We were blessed with fantastic February weather on our day in Lisbon! After the Tuk Tuk tour with Pedro, we walked down to the Tagus river front and to the Praça do Comércia. This is the main square in Lisbon. It is massive! The sides are lined with what are surely completely tourist restaurants. But the warm sun was just begging us to soak it up while enjoying a glass of wine and people watching.
Finally, it was time to eat lunch. We went to a restaurant recommended by Pedro. It was in Baixa (downtown) and was just a few blocks from the Praça do Comérica. da Prata52 is a small cozy petiscos restaurant with traditional small plates. Petiscos are the Portuguese version of Spanish tapas. We had an amazing waiter who told us the history and details of all of our orders. The food was absolutely phenomenal and it will be an experience that stays with us for a long time! Unfortunately we were so caught up in the experience that we forgot to take any picture! At that point it was time for us to catch a train back to Porto. We said adues, and until next time, and headed back to Porto! Thankfully Amy and Chad had no issues flying back to the US the next day!
Braga
Our final daytrip from Porto was a day in Braga. Braga is a town of about 150,000 an hour train ride north of Porto. It is known for it’s religious heritage and boy did that prove to be true! This was an easy walking day for us. I found this walking guide of Braga on the internet and we followed that from church to church. It is truly amazing how many churches can be located in the city center!
We found Braga to be a little sleepy on a Saturday in March. While it is on a lot of “must see” lists for day trips out of Porto, we found it to be mostly locals in the city center doing their weekly shopping and having a coffee in a cafe. The city center also isn’t very big, so by noon we were about done. Now to find something to eat! One thing to know about Portugal, and really most of southern Europe, is that they eat late! As American’s, we’re usually ready to eat lunch around 11:30. But here, they’re still sipping their morning coffees until 1:00pm. We finally found a little cafe near the old city gates. Eric decided to try the local specialty Bacalhau á Braga which is rehydrated salted cod with potatoes. And let’s just say, it wasn’t our jam. Maybe Porguese cod is an acquired taste? Then we new we needed a beer, so we happened upon a cute little sidewalk cafe that had multiple varieties of the northern Portugal staple SuperBock. Our original plan was to head to Bom Jesus do Monte, which is a UNESCO world heritage sanctuary about 15 minutes outside of Braga. But we just weren’t feeling it, you know? It was one of those days where it is best to call a spade a spade, and catch the next train back to Porto. The beauty of our lifestyle is we can always come back!
As you can see, there are a lot of options to day trip out of Porto! Whether you use a guided tour like we did to the Duoro Valley or you use public transportation, getting out of the city and seeing other parts of the country are a great way to get to know the culture and history!