Woke up. Packed. Ate breakfast – yogurt, with a bit of cereal mixed in and a little strawberry jam for flavour – a trick I picked up from our EF Tours’ tour director at Spring Break – and juice… Was really living it up this morning and added a piece of sort-of-toasted homemade bread… Still can’t figure out if the orange juice is some kind of Tang with pulp instant orange juice mix or just really poor quality juice…
Checked out of the pensao. Paid the whopping €60 for the two nights’ accommodation… Could have stayed cheaper at a hostel but for €30 a night I got breakfast, a double bed and a private bathroom… I’m not complaining…
Walked to the train station (about 10 minutes… funny how it seemed like 20 minutes walking to the pensao when I arrived and today it felt like 5 minutes… time really is relative I guess). Was quite early (no surprise there… I am always ridiculously early when traveling) but climbed on board the train anyways because it was air conditioned (sort of) and waited.
A few people gradually joined me until the train (Tomar to Lisbon) was maybe 15% full. Had to bite my tongue from laughing at the older Portuguese woman who whipped out her cell phone and proceeded to have a conversation with someone on the other end at full-on yelling volume… Even the other passengers were trying hard not to snicker… It wasn’t just that she was oblivious to the fact that she was with other people but the drama in her conversation was awesome… I couldn’t understand a word she was saying but she was really selling it…
Ticket checker seemed puzzled by my ticket (I bought it online) even though I’ve traveled a number of times previously this week on the same train lines with same ticket… Not a problem… he just seems stumped by how to enter into his system.
Train left exactly on time at 10:11am at no more than 20% capacity. I got off in Lamarosa – about 4 stops from Tomar. Exactly one other person got off the train with me making for a total of exactly 2 people waiting at the Lamarosa station… I’m not counting the one weird dude sitting between the platforms in a sort of meditative pose who got up and left after a couple of trains when by without stopping. Maybe he liked the rush of trains going past him… Speaking of that, a couple of trains went by at full speed while I was waiting… I can’t imagine what it would be like if two trains at collided with one another at high speed… There is just so much momentum and power… It’s actually quite awesome to be near them when they go by at speed…
The next leg of the trip (Lamarosa to Coimbra) was about the same – 20% full. Both of these trains were commuter type trains (no assigned seating, slower speeds, lots of stops – 18 of them between Lamarosa and Coimbra). Arrived in Coimbra with about 45 minutes to wait (turned out to be more like an hour because the train was late) so was able to grab a bite to eat (a surprisingly fresh and tasty ham and cheese bun) from the coffee shop at the station. This train was packed… Mostly with young backpackers and travellers… It was a higher speed (not a bullet train but faster than the commuter trains) with assigned coaches and seats… There was someone sound asleep in my seat but the seat beside her was empty so I didn’t disturb her and just took the empty seat as she was really out… Besides she had so much stuff crammed around and under her feet that asking her to move would have been quite the production. And although I’d booked a window seat, to be honest I prefer an aisle seat if there’s someone beside me as a I feel a bit claustrophobic wedged into the window seat… So it was all good. Ticket checker this time didn’t seem at all troubled by my ticket but probably sees a lot more of them than the regional checkers… It was interesting that none of the ticket checkers wanted to see my passport today when all of the other times I rode the train that’s all they wanted to see…
Eventually we arrived in Porto at the Campanha station and everybody piled off… It should be an ironclad rule of travel – you cannot pack luggage that is bigger than you or heavier than you are able to lift down from the overhead luggage rack and to get on and off the train with quickly… Although it’s actually not a problem if people pitch in and help their fellow travellers – I’m actually quite surprised at how rarely I’ve seen other people help lift down a suitcase or help someone with their luggage as they’re getting on or off the train… I do it all the time (partly because my hands are free because I’m lugging a backpack instead of roller suitcase) and people seem genuinely surprised when I do… It should be commonplace…
We arrived at Campanha station a few minutes late so I missed my connector to Sao Bento station but it was no issue as I just hopped on the next train (that arrived about 8 minutes later). It might have been a problem if someone was checking tickets as my ticket was timed for a particular train but no one checked so it was all good… Again, lots of young English speaking travellers on this train (which takes about 6 minutes) as Sao Bento is near to the main centre of Porto…
Piled off the train (along with everyone else) and made my way (using Google Maps again) to the Hotel Estoril Porto – my first real hotel of the trip… I got a good deal on booking.com so am paying basically the same for this (€30 a night) as I have for the guesthouses and pensaos in other places… But this one has a fan, a private bathroom, a skylight that actually opens and closes… and wait for it… wait for it… a memory foam mattress! if you have travelled to Europe and stayed in budget class accommodations you may have noticed that mattresses are hard… as in I’m often unsure whether they decided to use the bedspring instead of the mattress hard… This mattress is heavenly!!! And there’s a little balcony at the end of the floor that looks out over the gardens and terrace and over parts of Porto… And although it’s right in the heart of things, it’s super quiet… Definitely the winner for this part of the trip!
Up first for today was a trip to a self-service laundromat – fortunately there are two within 500 metres of my hotel. Grabbed a bite to eat from a cafeteria across the street and updated the blog and backed up pictures while waiting. Not the cheapest load of laundry I’ve ever done (cost me about €8 to wash and dry a small load of socks, underwear, a couple of short sleeve shirts and a pair of travel pants) but not the most expensive either. And my clothes definitely smell better…
After doing my laundry I headed back to the hotel and luxuriated on my comfortable mattress for a bit while checking on things to do in Porto. Then headed out to do a quick lap of the neighbourhood – with a stop at Livraria Lello – a bookshop that is said to have been part of the inspiration behind Harry Potter… It’s usually jam packed but I got there just as they were closing and it wasn’t too bad… I didn’t look at any of the books but did manage to get some pictures for my Harry Potter obsessed (as in we’re going to Harry Potter World in London in 6 days) wife and daughter…
Then grabbed a bite to eat from the restaurant beside the hotel – not great quality but quantity was good. €5 for a grilled cut of meat (they call it a steak but let’s just say it was a cut of meat). It was pork I think. Served with a decent portion of rice and fries… Washed it down with a glass (dude was way out to lunch when he called it a pint) of beer for €1.20 – I am really missing Spanish beer – it was so much colder and much tastier than what I’ve been getting in Portugal. But it’s much cheaper here…
After dinner walked for a bit looking for a market (found one about 5 minutes further up the street) and grabbed some water and replenished my stock of digestive cookies and Tuc crackers (it’s amazing how much of an old castle you can explore on a couple of mouthfuls of water and two Tuc crackers…) and then headed back to the hotel to write this post… As soon as it’s posted, I’ll be turning off the lights and hoping for a good night’s sleep before a full day of exploring Porto tomorrow.
Forty-Nine Nights in Europe 