Port in Porto, Portugal

Despite various daunting maps and reviews describing driving a rental into Porto old town as "dangerous", "intimidating" and "something I wouldn't wish upon my arch-nemesis", we made it into the old town hassle-free, thanks to signs for our hotel beginning immediately as we exited the freeway (Hotel de Bolsa - highly recommended). We parked the car, dumped our bags, and caught a beautiful sunset along Porto's Ribeira, a UNESCO heritage site, overlooking Vila Nova de Gaia, which is where all the old port houses are located.

We wandered around and had a reasonable dinner with this view overlooking the river and the Ponte de Luis (built by Gustev Eiffel). We began and finished the meal with Port (white to start and red to finish off). Following dinner we slowly walked back to the hotel and got some good sleep for the following day of hard-core sightseeing.
In the morning we woke and hiked up to the Porto Cathedral (Sao Francisco Church), the highest spot in the city. The cloisters were very impressive in the church and we were smart to go early in the morning as the tour buses flood in not long past 10. The cloisters were full of the beautiful blue pained tiles very characteristic of Portuguese 19th century art.

Following the cathedral, we made it to Mercado do Bolhão and checked out the stalls. The entire market wasn't open, but the stalls we did see impressed. Next to the market however, was one of the coolest food stores we have been to on our travels in Europe called A Perola do Bolhão. We bought some great eats for a picnic that we had on the other side of the river after crossing the dramatic high part of the bridge.

As you can see below, the bridge offers an excellent view over the city.

Following lunch, we wandered down to begin our afternoon Port house crawl. Definitely the only place in the world you can say that! Below is another angle of the old town of Porto from Vila Nova de Gaia.

Though not in use today due to less glamorous trucks, traditionally, all the grapes that were picked in the nearby Douro Valley (which we would go to the following day) would be loaded onto the boats below and make the journey down the river to the port houses.

We first went to Calem port house for a tour, then to Ferreira, which was our favorite of them all. The Ferreira property was massive and the old barrels were really great. The Ferreira mascot is the Emu, so naturally I had to get a photo of my wife, formally an EMU. The Emu's knees are backwards, which makes them never go backwards (hence the animal as a mascot...always moving forward).

Following Ferriera we went to Taylor's, which is up the hill from the river and had remarkable views of Porto across the river. We missed the tour, but were impressed with the port house enough to have dinner here later on in the day.

After the tasting, we walked back to our hotel and on the way weaved through the snake like roads in the Ribeira and eventually back to our hotel after a stop in the tile store for some souvenirs.

This was a nice lookout we stumbled upon during our building-maze walk.

That night it was back across the river to Taylor's, where we capped over the Porto phase of the trip (and my birthday) with perhaps the best meal of the trip, and also sampled some amazing port!

The Road to Santiago (from the Porto Airport:)

The next trip has arrived, another that has been in planning and we have been anticipating for months. A trip to warm weather! Jeremy, Lissa, Erin and I headed out on a Saturday morning earlier this month for a six night adventure from Santiago to Lisbon.

After getting our car from the Sixt rental company, we stopped at a small, untouristy town about 30 minutes north of Porto called Vila do Conde. Park near the harbour and find the place pictured below. Also cross your fingers that someone english speaking sits next to you as we did, since nobody who works at the restaurant speaks english and you are left trying to choose your food from a chalk board on the side of the restaurant. Needless to say, the grilled fish was unbelievable.

Following the restaurant, we made our way to Santiago and settled into our hotel, which was a great find as it was right on the edge of the pedestrian-only zone and we had a nice little balcony that overlooked the city. Santiago itself is a great city; not nearly as big as one would imagine, the old town was especially nice. Pilgrims have been traveling to Santiago from Lourdes, France on perhaps the most famous pilgrimage route in the world, making their way to the Santiago Cathedral where St. James' (supposedly a brother of Jesus) remains are buried. In place of actual roads in the old town are much smaller lanes that you can easily envisaging existed as such during the middle ages. The church is beautiful and we wandered around for a while before settling down at a great little restaurant down a narrow street. The vibe in the street was great as we had a great table with great finger food and wine to top it all off. Following dinner, we wandered back to the church to check it out at night and heard a great group of traditional Spanish singers that were entertaining the tourists. We then made it to 16, a restaurant recommended by the NYT and had a killer grilled octopus and some Albrino wine to end off the night. The following morning we said goodbye to Santiago and went to Cambados, a coastal town well known for the production of Albrino wines (Lissa's favorite). We had a wine tour at Fefinanes, where the very friendly wine maker gave us a tour and tasting. The property is hundreds of years old and has been in the family for equally as long. The winery is basically an old castle/manor that is really beautiful!Following the tour, we went to the wine makers cousin's place next door, where they distilled unique and tasty liquors, which of course we sampled and purchased some! Following the tour we had lunch at a nice spot in Cambados and then made it to Porto (without getting lost)!

Portrush & Giant's Causeway, Northern Ireland

Three weeks ago we headed to the Northland, making the 3 hour drive to Portrush Northern Ireland. It was my first time in the north and isn't unlike the Republic; you actually cannot even tell when you arrive into Northern Ireland as there is not even a sign to say welcome (unlike most US states). Following the nice drive by mustard fields, sheep and plenty of nice villages, our destination was Portrush, a resort town that is the best jumping off point to explore the tourist path of the north coast. The town was very cute, with a handful of pubs, restaurants and hotels.

Strauss, Rob, his father and myself then played a round of golf at Royal Portrush, which is the only course the British Open has been played at off of the main UK island that Scotland, Wales and England are on. The course was a fair challenge and the conditions were probably the best of the year with sun and very little wind. It is really fun to get out and play such famous courses in Ireland and we all had fun!

While the boys were golfing, the girls took the car and did a bit of touring themselves, stopping at this castle before warming up our seats for us at the pub.

We had a nice meal and some quality Guinness that evening and woke up in the morning and set off for Giant's Causeway, an amazing and truly unique natural wonder. For this small stretch of coast, the shore consists of thousands of hexagonal stones that incredibly symmetric for being natural. The formations were caused by a the heating and cooling process from a volcano that exploded some 20-40 million years ago. The area was subject to intense volcanic activity, when highly fluid molten basalt intruded through chalk beds to form an extensive lava plateau. As the lava cooled rapidly, contraction occurred. While contraction in the vertical direction reduced the flow thickness (without fracturing), horizontal contraction could only be accommodated by cracking throughout the flow. The extensive fracture network produced the distinctive columns seen today. It was really amazing and I didn't expect there to be so many of these columns.

Following the Causeway, we went another 10 minutes down the road to Carrick-a-rede Rope Bridge. The bridge connects the mainland with a small island that history shows used to be inhabited by fisherman who would erect the bridge (probably much less sturdy than the current) to travel back and forth. It is about 30 metres above the sea and while it looked really short and stupid as we were approaching, it was actually a pretty fun adventure.

Following the bridge, Strauss, Erin and I stopped in Bushmills and did the Bushmills distillery tour before coming back to the Republic. It was a fun day and a half and makes us want to explore the island more before our time here is up.

Helluvah-sinki, Finland

Helsinki didn't have the odds stacked in its favor from the get go. After being in Tallinn and St. Petersburg, the two more glamorous cities on the baltic sea, Helsinki was a last minute replacement with Riga after our flight was cancelled only days before we left. Despite not having historic cobblestones and the Russian block allure, the city was very easy to navigate and lots of fun, especially with our Hotel Glo bikes that are available free to hotel guests (too bad they slapped a surcharge on the spa, otherwise we would've really been glo(w)ing). We arrived easily from the airport on the FinnAir shuttle link and immediately took the bikes for a spin after checking into our sleek, nordic designed hotel.
The city center was really nice, a long park with a conservatory-style cafe at the foot of the park in front of the harbor where a fish market is held on most days.

We made it all over town, you name it, we went. Behind us below is the city's most prominent landmark, the Lutheran Cathedral (Tuomiokirkko). It is a commanding structure but doesn't compare to the churches from St. Pete's in the inside.

After we dropped the bikes off we stopped at the aforementioned cafe for a cold (or hot depending on who you ask) one and a few laughs.

That night we had a nice wind down from our baltic adventure; with a relaxing and affordable dinner (Erin tried NON-pickeled Herring) and went back to our great hotel and fell asleep while playing cards (I did at least).

The following morning we did what we always do in european cities, made it to the local market to see what was in store. Its great to see the different foods offered in each city. This was the first one that had smoked eel and bear pate.

Helsinki, though not the tops on our list, made for a perfect conclusion to the latest chapter of travels.

Mother Russia

So we left Tallinn on a 11:00pm bus towards Russia, hitting the checkpoint at about 2am. The scene was straight out of a Bond movie, with the old Russian guards and the worn out checkpoint that we had to get checked through before re-boarding the bus on the other side of the checkpoint. We all made it safely with minimal inquiries as to our intentions behind the iron curtain. The remainder of the bus ride felt like our brains were going to fall out of our skull due to the poor Russian infrastructure.

We arrived at about 6:45 rushing off the bus....and of course, I forgot my bag with our camera and all our hotel information. Thank God Erin had the Top 10 St. Petersburg book in her purse. Just imagine arriving in a country where nobody speaks much english at 645am, not knowing where you are and having to track down your bag on a bus that you had no idea where it was going, nor how to track it down. That's what we were up against. We managed to find someone from our bus who instructed the cab driver what happened and we were off to the races, chasing the bus across the city....to no avail however. We were dropped off and the bus had already made the last stop and left. Have no fear though, as we made it back to our hotel and the super friendly receptionist was able to track it down for us. As our friend Tanya says on her super famous blog (see links to the right), the most entertaining stories are those that give you the most anxiety at the time.

Crisis averted, on to St. Pete's tourismo style. The city, though cold, was amazing. The city was very reminiscent of Paris, with long grandeur avenues, beautiful buildings, amazing churches. There are countless canals in the city that was founded by Peter the Great from a swamp in 1703 and the city was presented beautifully for the modern day tourist.

We wandered to the church of spilled blood, with is one of the three most impressive churches we have ever seen (St. Peters in Rome and insert the second coolest Church...many tied for second). We estimated there are nearly 6-7 million pieces of mosaic inside the church as it was ENTIRELY covered in the beautiful stone designs.

After the church we wandered to the nearby market and picked up some Matroyska dolls (the doll inside a doll inside a doll).

After the church, we wandered around the tourist sites for the rest of the day and went to the Caviar Bar for dinner. Below is St. Issac's cathedral, an amazing church.The restaurant was in the Grand Hotel Europe which is probably the nicest hotel in the city as we were determined to sample authentic caviar (if making a decision based on experience, caviar is a must, but it is not for the cost conscious, so naturally we felt a little cheated when the bill came).

After dinner we went to a university bar that had a good DJ and very local vibe (we were probably the only American tourists to ever enter the bar).

The next day we went to the Hermitage, probably the biggest museum we have ever visited (it competes with the Louvre), spending nearly the whole day there (and we are not museum people). That night we sampled Georgian cuisine at a great local place that served wine in ceramic bowls and served great grilled kebab-style meats. The following day we scheduled a tour to see Peterhof palace. It was really beautiful, but probably only worth the visit in the summer when the fountains are going. Regardless, it was a nice visit and we had a really great tour guide who had great knowledge to share about the sights, as well as Russian culture and history. After the palace, we went to a really interesting Orthodox cathedral in the suburbs and get to witness the palm Sunday service (which is actually Easter Sunday in the western Christianity). Following the cathedral, we went to a WWII monument that few tourists visit. It is all in Russian, so thankfully our guide was very helpful. If we think the war affected the US, it decimated St. Petersburg during the 900 day siege, where 2 out of the 3 million people in the city died due to the German attacks which cut off food supplies combined with the cold winter. Our guide told us how families survived by cooking leather and eating the flour used to seal wallpaper as there was no food. Her grandfather was the only one of 13 brothers and sisters to survive the siege.

We followed up with dinner with some pizza and then ended our trip to Russia at the Grand Hotel Europe bar with a pint of Russian lager. Despite the early emergency, it was a great trip behind the Iron Curtain!