For the past few days I've been in Porto, Portugal. We've now visited all three fully sovereign countries on the Iberian pensinsula on this trip. (Sorry, Gibraltar). This is our first time in the north of Portugal. Porto is the commercial center of Portugal and it is said to be the city in Portugal where people actually work and this checks out. When we went out in the morning we saw people in suits who appeared to actually be elite service sector workers commuting to their jobs, something you don't really see a lot of in Southern Europe. I guess hundreds of years of trading Port wine to the English has imbued this part of Portugal with a more Anglo-Saxon work ethic.
One way Porto is just like the rest of Portugal is the seafood. I have been to Portugal three times now and have never had a bad seafood meal here. Every octopus I've had in Portugal is strictly superior to any octopus I've had outside of Portugal. In Portugal, if you go to a fishing village like Nazare (near-ish Lisbon) or Matosinhos (near Porto) the seafood is actually cheaper and better, as one would naively expect. In the United States, I've found that instead seafood restaurants near the ocean coast off people's beliefs that the food there must be good and serve mediocre food at very high prices.
Today we took a train 90 minutes northwest of Porto to visit Guimaraes, the first capital of Portugal. We saw the thousand year old castle once owned by Afonso Henriques, the first King of Portugal. We also saw the 600 year old palace that a king of Portugal built for his illegitimate son. Much progress was made in building quality and interior comfort during those 400 years between. Guimaraes bills itself as "where Portugal began" and thus is a bit like the Virginia of Portugal.
Tomorrow, the miserable experience of flying to the real Virginia. OPO -> MAD -> IAD, all in economy. Blech.
