After disembarking from the Viking Hemming in Porto after completing the River of Gold Cruise on the Douro, we continued our adventures in Portugal with a quick taxi ride to the airport to pick up our rental car. I had chosen Avis for this four-day rental with pickup in Porto and drop off at Lisbon airport in the morning before our flight to the USA. Total cost (in mid 2019) was $253 which I thought was very reasonable. We picked up the car with no issues and headed off to our first stop – the historic town of Guimaraes. This city is a Unesco World Heritage site and is an excellent example of an exceptionally well-preserved and authentic example of the evolution of a medieval settlement into a modern town. And it was!
I found driving in Portugal to be very easy – we weren’t in a rush, and we did take the toll-road motorways when available as we had been told that many native Portuguese people tended to avoid these roads because of the cost, and they certainly were quiet and not very expensive (for a tourist). So, the drive to Guimaraes didn’t take very long. We started our tour in the Palace of the Dukes of Braganza – a very impressive stone-built castle/manor house.
And, from the other side where we entered, it looked much more forbidding!
As you can see, after all the bright blue skies over the Douro, it had turned cloudy, but no sign of rain, thank goodness, as we were planning on a walking tour of the city. The interior was almost like a monastery with cloisters around the exterior walls, and you could pretty much tour at your leisure inside the building.
The private chapel was decorated with carved balconies where I guess the important people sat, away from the poorer types gathered in the main part of the room – although perhaps the poorer types were just the servants. I can’t see them letting people in off the streets in those days!
With that well and truly explored, we toured the castle that is just behind the palace. I would think that they would build round these pebbles rather than try to remove them!
Walking down the hill into town, we passed by the courtyard of the Nossa Senhora do Carmo church with its beautiful staircase and tiles:
And then down into the town. It was lunchtime, but the restaurant we had chosen – the Res Ves, was pretty busy and so we wandered around the main square first admiring the old buildings and the nonchalant way this lady was just watching the world go by!
Throughout the town, we found these very ornate Stations of the Cross built into the walls of the city:
Feeling hungry, we went back to the restaurant which is opposite the Town or City Hall in Guimaraes:
The old restaurant, includes a lovely outdoor balcony and we did manage to get a table in this area so that we, too, could watch the world go by as I enjoyed a very healthy-looking Portuguese sandwich like a croque monsieur called Francesinha with cheese and steak!
Fortified by our lunch, we started the tour again, and got as far as the edge of town looking towards this intriguing church with all the flower gardens leading up to it:
This was a step too far, though and we backtracked at this point to the cloisters of Museu de Alberto Sampaio in Guimaraes. Very calming and full of intriguing artifacts from an earlier age:
And still there was more – the ancient church in the town center which originated from a double monastery founded in around 949:
With that, we made our way back to our car, which was parked under the more modern buildings of the courthouse. I had booked rooms in two hotels for our journey without explaining to my wife just where we were staying. Luckily, it turned out OK! The first one, for two nights, was the historic Curia Palace hotel in Anadia.
The hotel is one of Portugal’s legendary hotels from the “Golden Twenties” era and from outside, it was hard to fault. To say I got some brownie points for booking this was an understatement! We drove up to the front doors on the pea gravel drive, admiring the gardens and the facade and then… nothing. No-one came out to see us, and with no sign of anyone in the vicinity, I dragged our heavy suitcases through the gravel to the door. Wheeled luggage doesn’t do too well in these circumstances. Things would improve, I thought. Inside, there was one person on the check-in desk, but the person in front of me was seeking towels for the swimming pool. And of course, they were not at the front desk, so the clerk left to find some towels from somewhere!
5 minutes later, it was my turn. The room was assigned, and I asked about dinner. Sorry, no dinner tonight, or perhaps we were too late, I’m not sure now. I asked about local restaurants – nothing. We did drive about the area, and this was true – nothing to be found. Finally, after we had moved into our room I went back to try again and was told the bar might have some bar food. Success – although the man behind the bar didn’t seem to know much about that.
Finally, we did manage to get a sandwich prepared and we were able to eat it in the bar. So, if you have ever watched the UK TV show Fawlty Towers, you have an idea of what that first evening was like.
The room itself was great and I did manage to find a place to park my car that was not too far away, and we went to sleep thinking about the next day’s adventures starting in Aviero, the Venice of Portugal.
