Friday, 18 September 2015

A day much travelled.

Up and out sharpish for the bus to São Bento, whence we planned to travel up the valley to Pinhão.  After our lengthy wait for a 500 yesterday, we left bags of time - long enough to get quite chilled in the morning mists.  Eventually, the bus turned up: the same driver as yesterday afternoon, and conceivably the same bendy bus.

Last year, when we bought our train tickets in Lisbon for the ride to Porto, we went to the station, I went to the counter and bought them.  This morning we'd to establish what flavour of train we wanted, press the appropriate tit on the machine at the door of the booking office, then wait for its number to appear on a screen, directing me to the appropriate counter.  It being early, and in view of my inability to deploy any Portuguese this trip, I began in English, to a hostile reception.  Noisy railway stations, a mumbling clerk behind a glass screen, plus the early hour are not the best combination for an incompetent speaker of Portuguese, but given the clear context and the simplicity of the requests involved, we were soon issued with our tickets, y compris my old-geezer discount: hurrah!.  Signs to the ticket office are given in Portuguese and English, and the clerk next door was handling French very capably, so I guess we were just unlucky.  Or indeed lucky in my case, to get the chance to wheel out a bit of a neglected language: we got to our destination and back again.  Fares are cheap: young Martyn's ticket for the return - well over two hours each way - came to €21.  Mine was €11.65!  The tickets may have been cheap, but the train was nasty.  Cleaning, as we waited to depart, amounted to a dame flicking a duster at each unoccupied seat.  No attempt to clean the purple glop off the window ledge or the window itself.

It takes over an hour to get to the scenic parts of the valley, though the countryside on the way was pleasant and varied - more so, I have to say, than on the line between Lisbon and Porto, though the line side vegetation of pampas grass and morning glory was familiar.  Further up the valley, eucalyptus and vines predominate, and from just before Régua, the celebrated terraced vineyards are much in evidence.  Sad to see a lot of them neglected or abandoned, but good to see quite a lot of plantations of young olives.

They say that the most interesting thing about Pinhão is its railway station.  We found some attractive little corners, but are rather inclined to agree.  The town's situation on a bend in the river beneath steep, terraced hillsides is already pretty good, and the station is indeed a fine gallery of azulejos depicting the landscape, viticulture and local costume.  I took dozens of photographs, but can't upload from here.  Watch this space.

We took an hour's boat ride further up the valley.  They say the best bits are above Pinhão, but that makes just too long a day of it from our end of Porto, so a brief sampling by boat was a good alternative.  Lunch in a snack bar: two hefty dollops of something akin to pizza (bread base, several layers of ham followed by cheese, bacon, tomato purée and black olives.  Two glasses of local red, and two port wine enhanced pastéis de nata.  Bill: €7.70.  We'll be back to Pinhão next time someone offers to helicopter us in.

The train back was initially the one we'd taken out, complete with hefty, goateed, pony tailed conductor, who helpfully told us we'd have to change in Régua.  (I'm not sure I made the confirmation question using the correct form of the infinitive, but he confirmed what I thought I'd said, and the ensuing actions proved it was right).  Better train for the rest of the trip, obviously bought second-hand from Renfe, given that a lot of the notices were still in Spanish.  I dozed a fair bit of the way back, but we both enjoyed, while awake, seeing the scenery in bright sunlight, cf. the impressive but different views through the morning mist.

Back in town, we opted for a metro ride out to Matosinhos, which is the end of our bus route, and not far from our wonderful digs.  Amusing non-verbal interaction on the metro between two giggling girlies and two young black guys, one of whom had astonishingly small feet.  Maybe that had sparked the imagination of the said ggs, and the giggling thereof.

After a somewhat sweaty day out, we opted for a scramble up the hill to the rather basic mini-market, returning with frozen calamares.  I'm instructed that we shall eat more healthily on our return to France.

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