Who doesn’t love a blast from the past? During my last days in Lisbon, I got a message from Anna, whom I had met in Fiji, that she would be visiting Porto and saw that I was nearby. Suddenly, my trip to Porto would have much more meaning, as Anna and I were trying to reunite for a while at this point. I was super excited to share a dorm room with Anna again and add another phase to our travel-based friendship. This would also mean that my entire Portugal trip was filled with loving friendship experiences. This was so unexpected. What a stark contrast from my experience in Spain. There was only one significantly negative interaction with a local in all of Portugal and that happened in Porto. I finally managed to touch a nerve with a waiter. Still, I would leave the Porto region incredibly sure that I would return in the future and ready to explore even more of the country.

Arriving by train is the way to go. Even though train travel from Lisbon requires transferring from a national train to a suburban train outside the city, the rail approach surprises you with views of the river and massive bridges as you come out of the train tunnel. If for only a minute you get a sneak peek at what awaits you when you get off the train, it is enough to get you excited. I arrived to overcast weather but luckily the sky cleared up the next day. I met up with Anna in the hostel and we made our way around town!

Our first stop was the most famous of all of the bridge crossings, the one where the tram passes over alongside pedestrians. No cars allowed! For a public transportation lover like me, this is a dream come true. The views of Porto are stunning from any angle. From either side of the river, from the bottom of the hill, from the hilltop… it’s just filled with life and energy.

Among the low-lights of the experience: we showed up for a walking tour but left after 20 minutes of listening to the guide talk about something related to Harry Potter. Just a reminder: Harry Potter is 100% fictional. This was disappointing but not enough to ruin our time. We had also asked the front desk at the hostel for a recommendation for local seafood at a backpacker price. Sadly, the recommendation we received was for the tourist trap area by the ocean. It is called Matoshinos. You see, Porto isn’t really known for it’s beaches. It’s a maritime port, so technically there is a beach but it is totally industrial. You have to take a bus an hour outside of the city to reach it. It did not help that there was a shouting five year old boy the entire ride. It was so loud that at one point I raised my voice from the rear of the bus and shouted towards the front for him to quiet down. The boy did not notice that I said anything but the other tourists on the bus certainly heard me and looked at me like I was absolutely insane. Maybe I am…

Matosinhos is an odd district of seafood restaurants popped in the middle of the industrial area. I’m sure there’s a history that tells the story of maritime workers who used to eat lunch at these places and now they’ve gentrified the restaurants for tourists. These restaurants are not even on the beach. They are just on a port-adjacent run-down street with truck traffic: fumes and all. The prices were outrageous at all of the places: more than 20 EUR for a piece of fish. You may have friends that have been to the Matosinhos area and had an excellent meal. All of the restaurant reviews on TripAdvisor were mediocre. I just ask that you remember that I am on a backpacker budget. It’s different than being on vacation and being in a situation where I’m willing to throw down cash to put my stamp down that I’ve been somewhere vacation-ish. My budget restriction means I do not go to fancy restaurants and I have to be incredibly value-conscious when making eating decisions (in the same way I am when I make accommodation decisions). We looked at the menus for every restaurant along the strip. We realized we were stuck in a trap. We were getting hungry and had to make a decision. We picked one of the last restaurants on the strip and were guided to a table.

I have not mentioned this yet but the entire time in Portugal, I had been greeting people in Portuguese and then politely asking if they prefer me to speak Spanish or English because I do not speak Portuguese. I was quite certain they knew I was not a local from Spain because I do not speak Spanish with an accent from Spain. Also, they clearly knew I was not Portuguese. I had not experienced any issues with having chit chat in Spanish up until this point. When the waiter came to our table, he did not say a single word to us. He just made a face signaling that he was ready to take our order. Given the amount of money we were about to throw down, I wanted this to be a nice experience. I said in Spanish, “Hi, how are you doing?” He looked at me like I was crazy. I said, “You didn’t say hi or anything, is everything ok?” He responded to me in English that this is Portugal and they don’t speak Spanish. I definitely caught this guy on a bad day. I managed to offend him by speaking Spanish. I don’t think it would have mattered much if I had spoken English when I asked him to say something to us before we give him our orders. The food, sadly, was dry and bad. Anna ordered the traditional fried cod dish bacalao and it was so dry so said she wanted some sauce. Of course the waiter never came over to ask us if everything was ok so I called him over and asked for sauce for the bacalao. His response was, “We don’t eat bacalao with sauce in Portugal.” I was quick my response: “Ok, it’s not for the bacalao its for something else.”

Begin rant: give me a fucking break. What is this fucking Paris where if you order a coffee at the wrong time of day you are reminded that coffee is only for “after dinner”? There were big delivery trucks rolling their way down the street outside, making a ton of noise. Across the street were shuttered dirty fish markets. Behind these shops was the industrial beach, cranes looming over it all. Let’s not pretend that it’s personally offensive to dip bacalao in tartar sauce. Ok, rant over.

I would later find out that the inexpensive restaurants across the street from the gorgeous train station in the city center are considered totally respectable quality for seafood, as the low prices are geared towards local workers looking for a quick lunch. I cannot see a reason for returning to Matosinhos as there are plenty of respectable restaurants within the actual city of Porto and still many good deals to be had. I’m sure I caught the waiter on what was probably one of many of his bad days, but had I not been with Anna and another friend, I would gave gotten up and left.

For our return to the city, we walked along a lovely promenade that our bus whizzed by on our way to Matosinhos. You can take the path all the way to the city center but it’s a very long walk. Anna and I did a bit of the walk and then hopped on the bus so that we wouldn’t miss happy hour at the hostel.

I had a lot of fun with Anna in Porto. Before I knew it, she was scheduled to fly out. It went by way too quickly. It was incredible to meet someone in Fiji and meet her again in Portugal. It was also nice to see that we were compatible backpackers together in both a beach hut island (Fiji) and an urban European cultural capital (Portugal). It helped reinforce my confidence that it is certainly difficult to find good people to backpack with and it is totally possible but you might have to go to Fiji to find them (in the middle of a cyclone).

Viana do Castelo

My friend Jay lives in Tel Aviv and he highly recommended Viana do Castelo. He’s a huge fan of Porto and was quite excited to learn that I would be visiting Porto. (I would meet Jay about two and a half weeks later in Tel Aviv to begin six weeks in Israel). Viana do Castelo is famous for many reasons: ominously watching over the city is the cathedral atop the mountain, reachable by funicular. There is also Gustave Eiffel’s famous rail trestle. Finally, this city is a stop on the famous Camino del Santiago de Compostela.

I was encountering more friendly people in this town. It was so nice to be reinforced about my feelings about Portuguese culture. The guy who ran the hostel was super friendly. He recommended a local burger joint. The burger was great and the chef and waitress were nice as well. My roommates in the hostel were all doing the camino. I was the odd man out. While one person was heading towards Santiago de Compostela, another German mother having her first solo travel experience at age 45 (she was really living for it) had just arrived from there and warned me that the hostels are packed with camino-walkers and all of the hostels suck. I corroborated the advice on Hostelworld.com and it was true. The hostels were all rated terribly poor: dirty conditions and enormous dorm rooms with 30+ guests in a single room without lockers. Theft was rampant. This was enough for me to make my final decision about returning to Spain after Porto: I would not be returning to Spain. The only way was via Santiago de Compostela and I was absolutely not going to put myself through that just so that I could see Bilbao. I decided it was time to finally go to the French countryside and I found a cheap Ryanair flight from Porto airport to La Rochelle, an hour north of Bordeaux.

My first night, I went over the beach to catch what I can only describe as a Martian sunset. The beach isn’t a place I would want to swim in given the super sharp rocks everywhere but it still added a level of specialness to this already beautiful town.

I spent my only full day in Viana do Castelo seeing the highlights of the tourist path with a classic “Jon Graf” stop midday at the most fabulous hotel pool in the city (I couldn’t have it any other way). By this time, I had become an expert in finding the most fabulous hotel pools, scoping out the scene and making my way directly to the pool area without paying a dime. This particular pool was part of a hotel complex behind the cathedral at the top of the hill. The hotel and pool had views of the cathedral, the mountains surrounding us. Pool plus mountain view equals happy me. I spent a few hours cooling off in the cold pool, my favorite escape from the blazing hot sun.

I returned back to the town as the sun started to set to get up close and personal with the Eiffel bridge and the pedestrian walkway along the waterfront. My friends and family know that I have always loved bridges. I could look at them all day.

Walking back to the hostel as the sun set, I was getting super excited for my trip to France and getting emotional about my upcoming trip to Israel. I was so pleased with my journey in Portugal overall. It had been such an unexpectedly wonderful journey as well. Flights from New York are only six hours. What a great neighbor to have across The Pond.