Day Four: Taylor’s Port House

Well, Chris woke up sick! Bummer start to the day, his throat was bothering him and we had 9:30am tickets to see the Lello bookstore. I let him sleep and set off on my own.

Lello’s book store is most famously where JK Rowling wrote the first chapters of the first Harry Potter. Naturally, it is a tourist attraction not just because of that but because of the beautiful staircase in the center of the store. There was a line down the block to get in. I thought maybe buying tickets for the first entrance at 9:30 would eliminate some crowds but I was very wrong.

I didn’t like the experience of being crowded in this bookstore. People used to come here to be creative and now they are crowded in to take Instagram pictures. I found the experience rather disturbing actually and I didn’t wait the extra time on line to buy a book. Wasn’t worth it!

I walked the streets with my feet hurting due to different sneakers but looking for a pharmacy that is open on a Sunday to get medicine for Chris. I stopped in a market and got some fresh orange juice and Halls. Then finally found a pharmacy on the way back with some medicated lozenges.

When I returned to the room Chris was feeling better which I was grateful for because we had a 12pm appointment at Taylor’s Port house that I did not want to go to alone!

Ubered across the bridge to Taylor’s and made it just in time. It was an audio tour as we walked through the port house which would probably be super interesting for people who don’t know about port but we sort of breezed through it to the tasting area which was a super cute garden!

We ordered one of everything on their menu and had a really nice lunch in the garden. It was sunny and the weather was perfect. We watched the peacocks strut about the garden while I complained that they were just prettier turkeys and screamed anytime one came near me.

Spent the rest of the day strolling the river, first on the Gaia side, then on the Porto side. We enjoyed the Gaia side more, seemed a bit less touristy.

Ended the stroll with a Gin and Tonic by the river. It was raining lightly by that point so we headed back to the room and decided to stay in and rest. We ordered some Portuguese food (mixed grilled meats, vegetable soup, rice and beans, and fries) from Uber Eats that was delicious and drank some wine and watched iron chef :)