Oporto, an ode to buses and trams!!
Jigsaw
Fri 31 Aug 2007 22:25
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Oporto is a beautiful, magnificent city that takes
looks, feels and smells wonderful. Friendly helpful people who seem
genuinely pleased to help and welcome visitors to their home town.
Probably the most interesting and intruiging place we have been to and I am
really smitten with the city. The mixture of old and new, some decaying and some
still under construction, is fascinating. The obviously well funded public
transport system works brilliantly, it enables travellers, and locals, to get
around fairly easily. The Metro is a dream to use being fairly new and very
reliable, and it too seems popular with locals. Buses go everywhere, very
frequently, and the information and maps enable one to get around the city quite
painlessly. Trying to walk around the city can be a challenge, as the place is
very hilly and the street network seems to work on different levels. There are
stairs, alleyways and passages that have the potential to take the unwary
pedestrian into a different world. On a couple of occasions we have stumbled
upon the rougher side of Oporto, which was not at all threatening,(no bears
wandering the streets) but sufficiently different to demonstrate that the
relative economic prosperity that Portugal has enjoyed in the last 20 years is
not universal.
Food is very good, lots of fish and good meat too.
Restaurants are extremely good value and staff in them, again, keen to help, and
will always try to translate and describe the unfamiliar Portugese
dishes on the menu. The wine in the restauants is amazing value, a decent,
very drinkable, bottle of wine can be had for around 4 Euro.
A suprising number of people speak
good English, even in small the non touristy suburb where the Marina
is located. The local market was a shock as it was offering live rabbits and
chickens for sale, alongside the vegtables needed to accompany them on to the
plate. Kate and Molly were a trifle perplexed by the live animals being sold,
but appear to understand that it is part of a different culture.
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