It’s taken us a couple of days, but I think we’ve caught up on our sleep.

Our adventure has started out as strolls down our street and around the local area. There are lots of little shops nearby, plus a plethora of street buskers throughout the day.

There are a few really good ones that we have stopped to listen to. For those people performing down our street, we can just open up our balcony doors and listen. Then there are the moderately talented ones, who we give a listen to while walking by. Lastly, there are the “walk the other way” people who we don’t hear much of – because we walked the other way!

It is nice to see people crowding around and tipping the musicians, as they do provide enjoyable entertainment.

Our first couple of excursions have been towards the Sao Bento Train Station. It’s right at the end of our street and is always crowded with rail passengers and with tourists.

The tourists visit to see the beautiful tile artwork on the walls and ceiling of the lobby. The blue and white tiles are known as azulejo tiles and are found in many places around the city and the country. In the station, they depict historical scenes as well as some decorative rail motifs.

We’ll get to see plenty more of them as we travel around and I’ll include some more pictures.

There is construction going on everywhere around the city, which makes the sidewalks even busier. The major projects are some new metro stations that are causing traffic jams and making it more difficult to cross the street.

One of our excursions was to the train station to buy our tickets for Saturday’s journey to the Douro Valley. Since our train leaves at 8:20 AM, we didn’t want to have to get up any earlier than necessary. The gentleman at the ticket counter was very laid back and Sue was able to complete the transaction in mostly Portuguese.

For our second excursion of the day, we ‘scoped out’ a restaurant for Thursday evening’s dinner. We did a lot of excess walking trying to locate it. The map apps all showed that it was very close to the side of the train station, however, we could not find it. After walking around for a while and climbing scaffolding covered sidewalks; plus walking up inclines that certainly shouldn’t be expected of humans, we resorted to asking someone in a nearby shop if they could direct us to it only to find that it is actually IN the train station. Well, didn’t we feel dumb.

Needless to say, the return trip in the evening was pretty quick and we were glad that we didn’t give up our search. The restaurant is called ‘Tapabento’ and we loved it. If you think about going, do make a reservation ahead of time. Those that didn’t waited in a line that wound its way out the door and into the train station.

The restaurant has a variety of small and large plates that you can share. Everything from Cod Croquettes to steaks and duck. If you can’t find something you like, then you’re really not hungry. Seriously!

We enjoyed our meals, had fun with our server and took in the action all around us. It was great!

We started with an order of Cod Croquettes, that were delicious. Not too salty or fishy tasting.

Sue then had the grilled prawns in a Thai Broth, while I had the roasted duck breast with a hoison sauce. We also went crazy and ordered some garlic and herb bread – to dip in the sauces, of course.

We thought we were done with the addition of a bottle of Portuguese Rosè. However, our server convinced us that dessert was needed, so Sue had a fruit combo called “I didn’t want the fruit salad” and I had a Chocolate trifle, that I just called “Yum”.

Feeling very sated and happy, we took a nice slow walk back to the apartment and hunkered in for the evening.

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Friday morning rolled around and we had another beautiful weather day ahead. In fact, the forecast for our entire time in Porto is sunny, no rain and high temperatures in the upper 70’s to low 80’s. Sounds perfect!

We had a special lunch planned today at a restaurant called “Costume Bistro”. The restaurant is located up in the financial district and we were looking forward to going, as we’d heard good things about it.

We walked over and once again couldn’t find the restaurant. Though this time we came much closer – we found their sister restaurant. One of the young ladies actually walked us over to the intended venue. It was just around the block, but down an alley way that we had originally walked by. She handed us off to the staff and we thanked her profusely.

The staff welcomed us in and seated us in the nearly empty dining room and we wondered if we had made a mistake. However, within fifteen minutes, the joint was hopping.

Lucky for us, the waiter had chatted with us a bit and taken our order before the deluge. First up was a bottle of red wine from the Douro region. It was recommended by our waiter and went well with our meals.

Vinho Tinto from the Douro

For starters, Sue had mushroom ravioli with a pesto broth and shaved Parmesan cheese, while I had shrimp rolls with a sweet and sour dipping sauce. We both enjoyed them very much

For our main course, Sue went with a Shrimp and Mussel risotto, and I chose the Mixed mushroom risotto.

Another fine set of choices as both dishes were delicious. Delicious, but also filling, as dessert would only be a fleeting thought today. How sad!

We lingered to finish our wine and just as when we arrived, the place emptied quickly leaving only us and another table. The waiter stopped back over to be dazzled by our knowledge of Portuguese….yeah, right…he brought the check. After paying, we set off back to the apartment to change into more comfortable clothes.

While relaxing with the windows open, listening to a few street performers, we both ended up dozing for a while. The good news is we hadn’t scheduled anything, so no plans were thrown off.

We worked on a few upcoming details and uploaded some photos in advance of tomorrow’s Douro trip. Deciding that neither of us was very hungry, we opted to stay in and head to bed early since we had to get up early.

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Someone suggested that I make all the pictures bigger. However, you can enlarge them by clicking on them.