Porto, Part 1

Today we took the train to Porto. The seats weren’t as comfy as the ones on the Spanish trains we took, and overall it was a lot more relaxed (no luggage scanning, and the conductor didn’t even want to see our tickets — he just wanted to know our names. I had leftover pastel de nata for breakfast on the train  

We squeezed Porto into our itinerary, because several different friends loved it, and I’m glad we did! We walked around  had some savory pastries for lunch (randomly chosen on my end: I had no idea what kind of filling was in the mini-empanada I chose:

I spent the afternoon walking around, shopping for souvenirs and taking pictures of tiled buildings:

The world’s fanciest McDonalds:

I also climbed the Clériges church tower:

The organ in the church

The church

Passed the carillon level during the 4:00 rendition of “Ode to Joy” — wow that was loud!

View from the top

The central train station had amazing tiles:

Ornate balconies are also everywhere in Porto:

For dinner tonight, we splurged a bit at a place recommended by our Madrid food tour guide  We opted to let the chef pick what we ate (after answering a couple of questions about our preferences) — it was all very tasty and surprisingly inexpensive.