Nazaré, Aveiro, Arrive in Porto

Brad
Jack
Logan
Benton

Since power and internet were back to normal today, we had a pretty standard morning. Logan was up first and went to explore, and once Brad and Benton got up they met Logan for coffee and pastries at Cafetaria Queque de Cenoura while Jack slept in.

After breakfast, we went back to the Airbnb, finished packing up (Jack had awoken and also was getting packed), and then all 4 of us headed out to see the famous lighthouse in the upper part of Nazaré (Farol da Nazaré). The views were really nice, it was super windy, and we ended up spotting the two Americans we had seen the night before in line for food.

From the lighthouse, we walked down to the beach. The waves were decent size, probably something like “I could attempt that and probably would be fine but well out of my comfort zone), so definitely nowhere near what they get to in the winter. Nonetheless, it was cool to see some of the body boarders riding the waves.

From the beach, we walked all the way back up to the lighthouse, and then into town. We went to Modern Tavern Zé d’Avó for lunch, where Brad and Logan got a pitcher of wine, and everyone ate some hearty meals.

Once we finished up at lunch, it was time to start our journey to Porto. During our surfing lesson, our instructor had recommended that we check out the town of Aveiro, so we decided to make a stop along the way and explore a bit. In Aveiro we walked through a relatively modern area along a canal, stopping to get some drinks; Brad and Logan shared a pitcher of sangria this time, while Benton and Jack got some Super Bock radler. Drinks were followed by gelato (at Praça da Milano), and then we roamed back to the car and continued onto Porto.

In Porto, there was a ton of traffic getting in, but we eventually made it to Coronel Pacheco’s Square (which was right next to our Airbnb). Parking inside our building was ridiculously tight, but (after a many-point turn), Jack was able to park us in; we decided that we probably shouldn’t move the car until we left Porto.

After settling into the Airbnb for a bit, we went to get dinner at A Despensa. It had a wait, so we went straight across the street to Castle Rock Pub & Hotel (which had the Champions League semifinal on TV). After having some beers, it was time for dinner, which turned out to be one of the tastier and entertaining meals of the trip.

We ended up ordering quite a bit at dinner: 2 bottles of wine, a cheese plate with 6 different cheeses, a main dish (per person), and then 2 desserts at the end. Logan got some black squid ink pasta, which was tasty, but it did look pretty funny to eat (since his entire mouth ended up black). We left dinner pretty late at night, feeling full and a tad buzzed, at which point we split up.

Jack and Logan went to get more drinks at Adega Sports Bar, while Benton and Brad walked down to the water to roam around before meeting Jack and Brad and the sports bar and heading back to the Airbnb. All in all, we slept pretty late (as we didn’t get to dinner until 9:30pm).


Locations of various pictures from this day (click a point to see a preview of the corresponding picture):