Fewer miles, more feet

We've been less ambitious today so far, limiting ourselves to Porto and Gaia.  Bus to the station, then a stroll up the hill to the cathedral, which is rather gloomy and much mutilated despite its fine Romanesque origins.  The cloister is interesting, though largely because of the relative absence of verticals.  The ticket to the cloister also gets one up on the roof thereof, whence there are good views, and, in some rooms off the cloisters, displays of the obscene profligacy of the church: jewel crusted mitres and the like, and more gold than you can shake a stick at, even if you felt like it.  If I were holy, I think I'd be a cathar.

From there we wandered down through the labyrinthine old town, where people leave their poultry out to scavenge in the streets.  One hen was shackled by one leg via a length of string to a cockerel.  Explanation, someone, please!

As we scrambled down to the Ribeira waterfront, we were hooted out of the way by a police motorcycle followed by a dozen or so young men on trials bikes.  It turns out that there was some sort of competition on the quayside.  The course was laid out on a couple of levels of quays, and involved huge tree trunks, tractor tyres, granite staircases, a vertiginous ramp from one quay to another, and a see-saw.  It was hard to see well because of the crowds in Ribeira, but we watched for a while from the lower roadway of the Dom Luis I bridge.

Thence to lunch at the Imar restaurant.  Acceptable, but don't make a special trip.  The interesting part was that the table next to ours was speaking a German dialect that I didn't recognise.  Ite turns out to have been Letzeburgisch, so hardly surprising.  Fascinating echo of the day we first came to Foz last October, when I got into conversation with a couple from near the Swiss border.

After lunch we took the cable car and a tram back to S Bento, and headed back down to Ribeira in search of a cruise boat.  It was very busy, and rather hot, so we eventually gave up and went looking for a bus back to Foz.  The centre of town is pretty much gridlocked today in preparation for tomorrow's half marathon, so we'd another long wait, but at least we got seats this time.  I think the local taxis had creamed off the bus queues further upstream.

So, tea, air conditioning and views of the sparkling ocean while get our strength up to go out for dinner!