Porto IV

 

So, yeah.  A part four.

After three weeks in Porto, I had to consider what to do with my few remaining Schengen days.  I thought about going to Cyprus or taking a train to Spain, but … nah.  I’m good in Portugal.  Porto isn’t my favorite city, but it is still Portugal.  It may not be Madeira, but this country as a whole still feels like home.   I would actually love to return to Funchal, but I couldn’t find an available place with a reasonable price (the prices ranged from $100/night to – and I kid you not – over a $1,000/night!).

I called for an Uber to take me to my next temporary home.  The driver was a friendly man who chatted with me the entire way. You know the drill.  I told him about my situation, how I came to be in the country, and how I did not want to leave.  He assured me that Portuguese was an easy language to learn and I laughed in his face (well, at the back of his head as I was in the back seat).  “If I can learn English, you can learn Portuguese.”  Um, English is easy compared to Portuguese, Turkish, Mandarin, etc. which is why everybody learns it.

We turned off the road that hugged the coast into an older part of the city.  The transition is always marked by leaving the paved highway section and slowing down for traveling the uneven, stone roads and increasingly narrow streets.  And I mean really narrow.  At more than one point, I was sure the guy was about to lose a side mirror or hit a parked car.  I just sat there wincing the entire time. 

We got to one area where he could safely turn around and I told him to just drop me off and I’d figure out the rest of the way.  I really didn’t want him to damage his car for a 12-euro ride. He said “no, I got this” and kept going forward.  After asking a lady passing by for the exact location, we turned into a tiny parking lot.  The apartment is just to one side of it.

He got my luggage out, shook my hand, and wished me luck.  I tipped him the max amount through the app – dude had earned every penny.  As I already had my phone out, I began crafting a message for the host’s neighbor to let me in.  Before I could press send, a pretty young woman with long curly brunette hair came around the corner and helped me into the apartment.

I knew when booking this place that it was a new listing.  It had no reviews but was owned by a Superhost (for those unfamiliar with Airbnb, Superhosts have the highest reviews and the best reputations). I usually chose my places based on reviews but took a chance on this one because of it being owned by a Superhost.

Turns out, it wasn’t just a new listing as everything in the place is new.  Brand spanking new.  As in the twist ties were still on the power cords of the appliances.  As in I had to remove the packing tape from inside of the microwave.  New appliances, cookware, bedding, linens, the whole nine yards.  I was the first guest and I can’t tell you what a difference it was to go from an old place with ancient appliances to a squeaky-clean place with unused … well, everything.

I LOVE that!

The place is really nice.  Big kitchen with a backdoor that leads to a shared courtyard, a roomy bathroom, and a decent sized bedroom.  I love the U-shape of the apartment even if I don’t love that it’s on the ground floor.  The windows in the living room face the tiny parking lot and there are always people walking around and making way too much noise. 

Being a new place, there was a slight hiccup on the first day.  I noted that the fridge, located behind the kitchen door (which is dumb – why have that door in the first place if you have to close it just to access the fridge?) was not working.  I pulled it back from its cubbyhole to find that it was indeed plugged in.  I shot a message to the host then immediately figured out where the fuse box was located.  Something tells me that the place has been sitting unused for a while.  The fuse for the fridge was the only circuit that was shut off and the clock over the kitchen door was an hour behind.  Daylight Savings Time started in Portugal several weeks ago.

There was another issue I had with the place.  It has the same problem as other older buildings in this country in that it stays cold no matter what the temperature is outside.  There are two wall-mounted heaters in the place that do exactly zip unless you’re standing right in front of one.  Fortunately, there’s a heavy comforter on the bed so I didn’t have to use the one in the bedroom.  The host also provided a blanket on the sofa.

While not in sight of the water, the apartment has easy access to it.  This part of Porto is right on the ocean, a short walk away from the mouth of the Douro River.  There’s a park close to the shore that reminds me of Belem in Lisbon as it’s just as green and pretty.  This whole area is just gorgeous, so much so that I don’t think I caught it all on camera.

It’s a good hour on foot from this part of the city to the touristy section, but there are busses and taxis everywhere.  The colorful tram cars run right along the main street with the terminus of the tracks being just a short walk from the apartment.

Unfortunately, after having decent weather for the last couple of weeks, the first few days in this new apartment saw the weather take a turn.  A couple of days were just frustrating, starting off sunny and then turning gloomy and rainy.  Then sunny!  Then raining.  That cycle repeated until the weather just decided screw it, just rain all day. 

Yay.

Since I didn’t relish the thought of finding a new home in that weather and I was quite content in the apartment, I extended my stay for another week.  After days of wind and wet, Monday 5/6/24 started sunny … and actually stayed sunny all day.  It was glorious!  And I’m not the only one who noticed.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: the Portuguese are a hardy people.  When I went walking on the first sunny day, the temperature still hadn't risen much because of the rain.  I had ventured out in my heavy hoody zipped up to the neck as the wind whipped tears out of my eyes and made my nose run.  Meanwhile there were half-naked people lying on the beach.  I don't know if I'll ever be this weather-resistant.

The very next day, temps were in the low 80's.  Summer is coming, folks.  Only my favorite time of the year!