One of the top ten most beautiful train stations in the world. It takes your breath away when you enter.

” Built in the early twentieth century on the site of an abandoned convent – of which only the ghost of a nun supposedly remains – São Bento has a fine, respectable granite exterior. But then you head inside. And… just… wow. The walls and ceilings are decorated with more than 20,000 tiles depicting significant moments in Portuguese history, painted in the blue-and-white ‘azulejo’ style by Jorge Colaço. “

A small selection of thousands of random street photos of Porto.

A little snack before dinner.

And wine.

Of course!

Our ‘spoil yourself’ diner in a Michelin restaurant.

It was better than you can imagine.

http://www.oficinaporto.com/en/

Art, biker bar and drinks on the street.

So much fun walking home at night!!

Waiting for our pickup to take us on our tour of the Duoro Valley.

We started our morning with a very informative cruise on the Duoro river.

A royal Portuguese charter of 10 September 1756 defined the production region for Port wine. It thus became the world’s first wine region to have a formal demarcation.

It is fascinating to see single rows of vineyards on tiny rock ledges, of which some vines are more than a hundred years old. Everything has to harvested by humans, since machines and animals can not navigate the steps.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douro_DOC

Next stop was a small ‘Quinta’ where we learned up close about making port and other wines.

https://www.quintadobeijo.pt/en-gb/home

And then we got to ‘lunch’

A long wonderful afternoon in the courtyard of non-stop food and wine and conversation and laughter.

Definitely the high point of the day!

Two ways to drink Grappa.