It has been so crazy busy since we got to Porto that I have not been able to keep up with the travel log. Thursday, the 27th, our plan was to hang out in the apartment in the morning to rest, then get ourselves into town for a quick lunch before meeting Gail in the afternoon. In the morning that day, Gail volunteered at the immigrant detention center. She just hangs out with the detainees trying to break up their monotony as they wait for their cases to be heard. She plays football or frisbee with them.
We just love the freedom of being able to jump on the metro and go places.
After she finished, she came and met us at the central Trindade metro station, We managed to get ourselves there on a bus and even were able to figure out how to buy a bunch of different metro cards for different zones. Gail wanted to show us the towns along the metro line north of Porto as options to consider. We are so glad she did. Neither of us was really picturing living outside of the city. We thought the towns would be too remote and with little to do. Or, would just be touristy resort towns with no local flavor. We were way wrong.
Gail took us about 40 minutes from the Trindade station to Vila do Conde on the northern coast. There was one feature I loved as soon as we started walking from the metro station. Unlike Lisbon, Cascais, Sintra, and Porto (everywhere else we had been), this town is relatively flat!
It is a municipality of about 80,000 people with the 3 main towns totaling about 38,000. That number swells some in the summer months. Vila do Conde is big enough to have 3 metro stops. It has all the things you need for daily living such as a medical center, all kinds of shops & services, many, many, nice restaurants & bars, a variety of affordable housing, a big center park with a regular market, and much more. It is only 35 minutes by metro from the airport for easy travel. The town has a quiet, relaxed place , yet you have a quick, easy metro ride to anywhere. Best of all, it has a nice river and is also on the ocean! Gorgeous views. It has an older part of town and also “newer” construction. Lots of character. While it appeals to summer beach goers, life there is not all about tourism. After walking most of the town with Gail, we both agreed this is a place we could call home.
We were dead tired when we got back to Porto after 8:00. We got off the metro by the convent and hiked down the steep hill to the Vila Nova de Gaia side of the riverfront. We went to a casual restaurant Gail recommended called Micha to have the Portugal signature meal: a franceshina sandwich. It is beef, sausage, ham sandwich with melted cheese and a tomato-beer sauce over the whole thing, Often served with a fried egg on top and fries on the side. It was quite good and a cheap meal even with wine and a shared homemade dessert. Then we took an Uber home as there was no way I’d have been able to walk up the hill after that long day; still we managed to do 15,000 steps for the day
