Kim's Mecca: Graham's Port Cellar

Day 3: Touring Porto

We woke up feeling fresh at 10:15 am this morning. I guess 14 hours of sleep will do that for you. ( Which is amazing given the fact hat I was in a five and a half foot long twin bed that meant I had to sleep curled up or with my feet hanging off the edge ala Will Farrell in Elf.) LOL 

Since the free breakfast ends at 11:00am, Kim and I threw on clothes and headed to the breakfast room. The room was beautiful...ornate crown molding and over the top Baroque finishes everywhere you turn. We were less interested in that as we were in a decent meal and a cup of coffee, though, and so we got our grub on and headed back to the room to get ready for a day of sightseeing and port tasting.

After showering and grabbing our maps and cameras, we set off for Porto...this time with our eyes fully open and not at half mast like the day before. First we stopped in for a real cup of coffee in a local cafe. Im not sure what we are doing in the states, but it ain't coffee by the european standard...that stuff was good!

We saw Sao Bento, the train station in Porto, that is beyond beautiful with its hand painted tile work covering the 20+ foot walls and its marble floors. We also saw the Se Cathedral which was even more breathtaking. One of it's altars is made with over 1500 pounds of sterling silver, and each alcove of the cathedral is more ornate than the last with beautiful statues and detailed stained glass and gold pillars. It also had an enormous organ in an upper loft by the main entrance that makes you wonder what the music would sound like given the size and stature of this 12th century building.

We shopped at the marketplace some more and journeyed to a few stores to see if we could get some technical assistance with the Garmin (which was, I am sad to report, still not operational at this point), then we made our way down to an area just alongside the river where there is a free bus to Grahm's port cellar. There are several port cellars in this area, but Kim was adamant that Graham's was the place to be and that we could accept no substitutes, so Graham's it was. 

The drive to Graham's was quite amusing. Let me paint the picture for you...imagine a large bus full of people ambling up a narrow, winding cobblestone street about 15 feet wide at most. The street twists and turns so sharply that the bus has to continuously honk it's horn to alert other vehicles that may be coming down the road that we are there so we won't get hit. Oh, and did I mention we were doing this at top speed?

We arrived safely at Graham's and no sooner did we step into the place than Kim beelines to the bar to inquire about a particular sweet white port that she had tried before. The rest of our bus is lined up at a reception area where you are supposed to check in for the tour and select what type of tasting you will want to do at the end of the tour. As I am inquiring to Kim if we should meander over to the reception area, Kim is busy speaking to one of  the staff inquiring if she can bypass the usual order of things by pre-tasting the sweet white port she is so interested in (that is not even part of the tasting option choices of the tour, I might add). Gotta love Kim!

Gotta love Kim even more when you try the port that she has been raving about...God knows there is a reason for the raving. One word: DELICIOUS!

Anyway, the reception guy eventually comes over to us and informs us that we need to check in, so I make my way to the reception desk, select the basic tasting option, and we proceed to our tour of the cellar. The tour was pretty cool...I learned a lot about how the wine is made, what goes into the selection process for determining a vintage reserve wine and how the general process of making the wine has evolved over the 100+ years this cellar has been operating. In the vintage cellar we even saw bottles from 1863! We also saw and leafed through actual ledger books dating back to 1850 that were accounts of the wine sales that were made then. It was really cool.

At the end of our tour, we tasted some of the red and tawny ports (I'm not a fan of he tawny) and then headed back to the castle to rest, recoup and Skype Eric and the kids. Afterwards, we walked back down the hill, over the bridge and up a much bigger hill to go to dinner at Taylor's. Dinner was phenomenal (yes...I used the word phenomenal, Angela!), and the view was even more phenom...you could see all of Porto lit up and gorgeous in the sunset-filled sky. It made the 3 mile, partially up a steep hill and making-my-out-of-shape-thighs-burn hike all worthwhile.

We took another cab back (this time a little tamer and less like "Mr Toad's Wild Ride") and called it a night a 11:30. Tomorrow we head off for Salamanca, Spain, and thank goodness we got the Garmin to work so we are good to go with directions and won't need a map. Here's hoping we wake up to the alarm this time and can enjoy the breakfast and the scenery of the breakfast room a little more...