Last Day in Porto—October 14, 2018

We received news last night that Typhoon Leslie was expected to make landfall at Figueira da Foz, our next destination, so I contacted the pension and the management suggested we cancel our reservation, because the area was expecting high winds, heavy rains, and some flooding from the storm surge. Figueira da Foz is on a river and the Atlantic so we took their advice, deciding instead to stop in Coimbra, because we had a layover there anyway before catching the train to Figueira da Foz.

So last night I got on Booking.com and made arrangements at Despertar Saudade, the same guesthouse we stayed in last fall. It's near the university and had just been renovated last year, so we'll be on familiar ground.

And it's a good thing we cancelled, because this morning we read how 60 families were evacuated and one restaurant on the coast was demolished. Luckily, the winds only reached 80-90 mph, less than expected. Even better, no one was killed or injured.

Last night we had some wind and heavy rains in Porto. Apparently, Typhoon Leslie veered a little north instead of continuing east and we caught the edge of the storm. This morning we had a few heavy showers but they eased up by 9:00AM. The rest of the day was kind of like Seattle spring weather, misting in and out, partly cloudy, and light winds so we took a walk through some neighborhoods, and after walking a little over 3 miles, jumped on a bus that took us to the ocean turn around at the end of Boavista where we jumped on another bus that took us downtown. It was fun because we drove through some neighborhoods we also wanted to explore.

           (Rain shower from our bedroom window.)

Up a side street from Liberdade Plaza, we saw families having
lunch at a Presto Pizza and it looked inviting. As you can see
we had a tasty lunch. We started with the best salad we've had
so far—arugula and mixed lettuce with red onion, mozzarella
cheese cubes, walnuts, slices of Granny Smith apple, and
dressed with a pesto oil and balsamic vinegar.

This artwork is on the security door of the barbershop across
the street from our apartment door. This is a specialty shop
that grooms men with beards and mustaches and gives really
hip haircuts.

Shops with large glass plate window displays have metal doors that roll down like garage doors and locked at the bottom.











Tomorrow we're off to Coimbra, just an hour south by train, where we'll figure out what other towns farther inland we might visit using it as home base.

But before catching our taxi to the train station Paula wished
us well as we continue our journey.