Sat 22nd October: Mark arrived.

I had known for about a week that Mark was arriving today but he’d kept it a secret from most others. He had an even longer journey than I did as he arrived into Lisbon and then hired a car for the 3 hr drive up to Porto. His trip was around 38 hours to my 36.

Mark found the place easily enough and we even managed to park the car without too much difficulty. A quick shower and then we were out in the sunshine and pounding the cobbled pavement taking in the sights of Porto. Our first stop, some 60 minutes later, was at the only real Craft Beer shop that I could find but it didn’t disappoint at all. Mark’s first word, after downing some beer, was….’we have to come back here’! So, I think that made it so far-so good with the tourist trail from me.

Time was getting on and so we headed over to the other side of the Old Town for dinner. There is a traditional dish called the ‘Francesinha’ which I had been waiting to have once Mark arrived as there was no way I could eat one of these on my own. It is a sandwich made up of bread, chorizo, prosciutto, ham and melted cheese. I have another name for it…Heart Attack! I had been told that the best place to sample said Heart Attack was at Cafe Santiago and so there we headed. We shared one of these coronary items and another item, much like a cheese and ham toasted sandwich, which is another traditional item. There was plenty of room at the cafe when we arrived at 7 pm but there was a lengthy queue out the door by the time we were leaving.

We decided to head home and try a Port wine closer to the apartment and did so before retiring after Mark’s very long day.