Week 9: Porto - Lagos - Seville - Granada - Madrid

04.05.2009 - 11.05.2009 30 °C

So it began, the first official week in Europe. Needless to say we were quite anxious to check out the wonders of a decent chunk of Portugal and Spain, looking back, it was quite a week, so I hope you enjoy the following spiels.

Porto

After some confusion in transferring from the metro to a proper train station terminal, we finally got it together to hop on our first "fast train", with the side of the train stating that it could reach 220km/h.... not bad... The train trip was scheduled to be around 5 hours, but it would give Mark and I some time just to chill after spending the last few days either recovering or flat out on our feet.

It was also the first encounters with the dog culture in Europe. For those of you who know our family Dog "Migs'', you'll know that he is always treated pretty well (if not spoiled rotten), however as we have found out, the dogs rule europe....and this was our first viewing:

Apparently dogs on trams, buses, trains etc. is completely acceptable? Who knew....

The train lived up to the hype and once out of the city limits the little digital dial with the weather etc and time was showing 222km/h, we were well on our way to Porto!

When we arrived, we endeavoured to find the hostel, endeavoured and failed for 1/2 an hour. Eventually, we asked a local middle aged man who laughed at us and told us we'd gone the wrong direction. So he sent us in the right direction and 5 minutes later we had it made. The reason for the confusion (aside from our shocking map reading ability) was that the hostel's instructions made reference to a tower, of which there are 5-10 in the city centre where the train station is....

Given the transit, the getting lost and Guy undertaking another stupid foot movement resulting in blood once more (bloody cobblestoned streets) we didn't venture to far on the first day. Climbing up the Clergios Tower to get our bearings. The tower is on top of a church and is the highest point of Porto, giving a great 360 degree view of the city and allowed us to get our bearings, we wondered around the city for the afternoon and just took it easy.

If we'd known what the local delicacy was, I would have walked a little further..... A 'Francesinha' http://portoflat.files.wordpress.com/2008/02/francesinha.jpg
(or the heart stopper as we like to refer to it) is a tasty mix of bacon, chorizo, steak on a sandwhich, toasted with melted cheese on top, served in gravy, with a side of chips. I'm hoping my heart doesn't strike back for a while yet....

Porto is a city based on the peak of a small hill and thus everywhere you walk, be prepared to walk back up. There is also a beautiful river that stretches through Portugal into Spain along which there are many vineyards. Porto as such is the home of Port, with Taylors being the most prominent of the exporters, luckily for us they also do free tasting! After a walk along the river up to the ocean, a quick espresso for Mark and a short little boat ride across to the otherside Taylors was our destination with a peacock, manicured gardens, menus featuring there beverages from Buckingham Palace. Needless to say, the Port was great. After sampling some other "competitors" we headed back along the city side of the coast near the bridge which was full of cafes and generally just stunning!

Having met a bunch of Yanks and Poms who we meshed with fairly easily, we headed up to the main square to check out the annual graduation parade of the 4 local universities. Earlier in the morning, we had seen these floats and decorated semi trailers on our walk, wondering "What the?", so from 3pm to 3am there was a street party 100m from our hostels door with students, friends and family celebrating in the streets, armed with 1 Euro beers, music from the trucks, which later turned into dancing behind them in the city square. The graduates have top hats and canes in the colour of their faculty and it's good luck for them if you hit them on the head with the cane, hit the hat, not the head that is. Within an hour or so we'd managed to meet some graduates, some local kids, 2 in particular making our night awesome by introducing all of the lads around to anyone they knew (about half the parade) who passed by. So Miguella and Teresa, thanks guys you made it one hell of an evening!

Lagos

4 trains later and some 8 hours later, after leaving Porto we arrived in Lagos for a stopover in Portugal's beach region for a quick dip in the ocean and to check it out. unfortunately, we didn't allow for the 8 hours in our planning and we had to be in Barcelona with a number of stops in a short timeframe. So our opinions of Lagos are limited, other than it was a nice coastline, the hostel was pretty noisy, Canadians are crazy and apparently the place to go is Sagres, not Lagos according to all the locals we'd met throughout Portugal! If James the travelling American ever reads this, hope your trip all worked out mate, he'd lost his bank card, great bloke, so best of luck!

Seville

Due to no trains crossing the border we boarded the 6.30am bus to Seville, unfortunately we lost an hour and we only had one night in Seville! We teamed up with an Austrian bloke called HUBERT to head to the hostel when we arrived in Seville. Lucky for us, he was fluent in Spanish as finding a map, asking for directions proved to be quite challenging and you have strange street numbering systems where a square/plaza is involved in Spain. So 1/2 an hour later after jumping off the bus within a 5 minute walk of the hostel, we arrived to a wicked hostel.

Seville is a gorgeous city with a river running through, gorgeous castles and cathedrals and plenty of parks. We were keen to head out on the hostels tapas and flamingo dancing tour that night, but it turned out to be a flop! we waited until 10.30pm to be seated and then rushed the food and Sangria, to make it in time for the show down a few back alleys in the old town. Unfortunately, it wasn't actually Flamingo dancing! It was rather lame and has probably been the worst night out of the trip thus far So instead we headed back to the bar at the hostel and hung out with Hubert, Kate and Eva (2 awesome americans we would randomly bump into as we rolled along!)

Granada

One Word.....ALHAMBRA! This fortress, temple, castle is unbelievable with manicured gardens, a large assortment of various sultans bedrooms which each sultan would try and outdo the last, the longest construction for one room being 20 years! The workmanship is unreal, the view is spectacular and there is a really cool feel to this city. The old quarters have bars in the rock, which means they are cold when outside is roasting. There is a large arabic influence in the city and thus there is a slight aroma of spices in the air, mixed with cobblestoned streets, it reminded me of stonetown, Zanzibar, but it was a lot cleaner.

A picture is worth 1,000 words so instead of me trying to describe what we saw, it's easier just to show you. We were only there for one night, so Alhambra is all we managed to see, met some more cool kids (Rita and her bro, Jess from Paris. Thanks for entertaining us that evening guys, hope the hot baths were fun!)

Madrid

For the first time in a few days we were actually able to stop, take a breath and chill out in Madrid.
We arrived at lunchtime on our first day and headed for a walk around town to see the beautiful gardens, fountains and the royal palace where we were lucky enough to encounter an army band to serenade us amongst the statues and gardens surrounding the palace whilst we ate lunch.

We headed out into the shopping district to get a few neccessary things, at which time i noticed that there was a concert advertising AC/DC, Metallica and Iron Maiden for that very night in the cbd. So naieve and excited Guy bought a ticket without reading the fine print, which stated, they were all cover bands and it was a tribute night. Air guitars were busted out, broken English was sung by the bands and crazy long haired 40+ something Madridians busted their moves! Plaza De Espana is one of the city's plaza's and is on the main street, during the day it is nice, but an night, it is absolutely stunning as all the monuments, the park and the water features are lit up. Due to camera incapabilites, an "acceptable" photo isn't available, so take our words for it.

Whilst Guy was out watching immitations at their best, Mark had made friends with 3 aussies who had been on and leading a Contiki tour, so on my arrival, Sangria had laid the scene for the carnege that was to follow for the 3 young aussies and the two of us for the following night. We partook in a great game of Kings the following night, after two rounds, Guy left to wonder the city at night with some other kids (Madrid at night is stunning!) whilst Mark and co were kicked out of the "Drinking" Room/Common Room.

Prior to the carnege of Kings, we were witness to a well known Spanish pastime, the Bullfights! Now, I must admit, it was all a bit barbaric, but a sight to behold nonetheless! litre beers in hands, nosebleed section seats, spaniards and american tourists around, we watched the "fight". I must say we were all going for the bull as the fighter looks like he belongs at Taylors square or on Oxford Street and has all his little buddies run in to help him and distract the bull. What a big girl! And that is after the bull has been speared, stabbed and is out of breath! Sadly, none of the bulls got a look in! Rigged!