Hammers, hoicking and hills !

 (Still no apostrophes, but am getting used to writing without them now - who knows, maybe they will become redundant? )
We arrived in Porto on a Sunday evening. We thought that the locals had dinner on the streets, wandering about drinking beer from plastic cups, hitting each other on the head with plastic, squeaky hammers,whistling, singing and carousing until the early hours EVERY night. We prided ourselves on how well we must have blended in for them to involve us, especially the hitting on the head with hammers bit and the inviting us to eat grilled sardines with them on the outside tables.  Only when we spoke to our waitress did we understand we had arrived on the biggest day of the year, the Feast of Sao Joao (San Antonio) and the hammers and sardines were the most important things about the festival.  Right then.

 

Lots of great things to do in Porto - port tasting (Richard is already a fan, but after Porto, I could easily become a convert), walking along the Douro River, up and down the VERY steep streets on both banks, enjoying the many parks and gardens and admiring the architecture. We had two lovely days there and then moved on up North to Braga - another wonderful river town with some amazing churches and ancient buildings.  Then the train to Coimbra, a University town where Fado began. The highlight there (and so far in Portugal, actually) was a Fado performance we had booked a while ago in the Fado Centre.

 

We both loved it and will remember it for a long time.  The next night, there was more Fado singing and a brass band performance for free in one of the squares.  Wonderful to sit outside with a squillion other people, enjoying Sangria, free music and beautiful temperatures, surrounded by some of the oldest and most interesting buildings we had ever seen. And this was a bonus day, as there was a general strike so we could not move on to Lisbon - no trains or buses.
Now we are in Lisbon.  We are NOT impressed.  It is extraordinarily dirty and awfully smelly and we prefer the other towns we have visited.  The constant hoicking and spitting and that horrible sniffing unspecified mucal matter back into your system is just awful. We have loved the friendliness of all the Portugese we have met, locals helping us with our map, waiters and shop assistants, but especially the hotel owners and staff, so it has been a huge disappointment to meet rudeness and indifference at this supposed 4 star in Lisbon. (They are so not going to like my booking.com review!!)
We had a great tram ride up and down some of the streets in the older parts of town, a lovely trip out to the river bank at Belem to see the Berardo Museum/Art Gallery (fantastic, right up our alley with Minimalists, Pop Art, Abstract and Dadaists) and a lot of loafing around in the hotel pool (this is the saving grace of this hotel, that and the supermarket next door, which has supplied all our meals and drinks).

Today is our rostered Rest Day. We are heading for the pool soon and will spend the day swimming and snoozing, then packing, preparing for our train trip across the border to Merida in Spain and generally chilling.

So, ciao for now!