81. take a vacation with just claire
yet another item to tick off my
101 in 1001 list. woo hoo!
this is another one i was looking forward to. c and i don't really get to travel much on our own, and since she was studying abroad, and i was going to switzerland for christmas to visit my dad, i figured, hey, we should do our own little trip.
and so we did!
we went to oporto, portugal, a country i had never been to before (thus allowing me to kill two birds with one stone -
knocking off another letter!).
speaking of birds, yes, there were peacocks. lots of peacocks. c and i got a little lost trying to find the city center the first day, and ended up walking a lot. we found a little park, and there were flocks of peacocks there. so beautiful.
oporto is a lovely old city perched on the hills lining the duoro river. one of my favorite things about the city was that most buildings had beautiful tile on their facades. it was so pretty, and made every building beautiful and unique.
click on the pictures to see them a bit larger - they come out super small on the blog.
we did some port wine tasting, which was really fun. the port lodges are up on the hills across the duoro in vila nova de gaia, and c and i had fun wandering up the cobbly dark alleys during the portuguese equivalent of a siesta - all the lodges close for a time in the afternoon, mainly between 1pm and 3pm, or thereabouts.
somewhat obsessed with this one
also obsessed with these tiles.
we had to hole up in taylor's lodge while it monsooned, but that was fine by us, because the port there was the best we had. we also met some russian women who were studying in barcelona, and did some tasting with them.
to see the city, c and i got two-day tickets for the hop-on, hop-off bus, which actually worked out really well, because there was a stop right by our hotel! anyway, the bus drivers were a little flirty, but the tour was great, because it went down the coast, and also drove by the major buildings of the city.
all in all, it was a great trip! and it was even better because it meant i got to spend some time with bear.
by the way, i don't think i've ever posted this many pictures. ever. it has taken me over an hour to load them all. my wrist hurts, so i am stopping, and will upload the rest tomorrow.
(for round two,
go here)
.cheers.
here we go! round two.
mmm, taylor port. as i said in my previous post, it was really amazing. let's face it - port is awesome. and it was nice to be inside for the monsoon, too.
porto side of the river.
