Day 7 Lisbon to Porto by Bus

Saturday 31 January.

Today presented our first serious challenge since arriving in Portugal. 

Originally we were to take the high-speed train from Lisbon to Porto, a trip of a little less than three hours. We would then train back to Lisbon the day before our return to the US. In fact, I had purchased the tickets a month or so earlier since we needed seat reservations so we were all set. Or so we we thought. 

But one can never know when the whims of the gods turn against us. There was a terrible storm that ravaged much of the central Portuguese coast the other night -- it  had in fact kept us awake, the noise in the city was so powerful. Anyway, it cut a swath of destruction inland between Coimbra and Fatima. As a result all the trains running north through that area had been cancelled -- indefinitely it seems.

But we were totally unaware that the train lines were closed until we got to the Oriente train station in Lisbon. Our Uber sailed along through very little traffic and dropped us off with probably an hour or so before our train, which would prove to be a good thing.

While we were sitting waiting for our train to show up on the departure board we kept hearing announcements about Alfa trains being cancelled (the Alfa Pendular are the high-speed trains). I queued up at the ticket office -- there was no information booth -- and learned that yes indeed our train was cancelled. What can we do? I asked. The ticket agent said take the bus and proceeded to refund our tickets then and there. 

We took our bags walked out of the terminal and over to the nearby bus ticket office where we were able to get tickets to Porto on a bus leaving at 10 am, just a few minutes before our train would've left. And the trip took about 3 hours 20 minutes, which was only about 20 or 30 minutes longer than the train! 

The bus dropped us off at the Porto Campanha train station and we took a taxi to the hotel where we soon met up with Richard and Pauline. Their flight had been a bit delayed so they arrived just a short while after we checked in.

Porto Campanha train station (upper level)

After settling in we met later for an aperitif before heading out in the drizzle in search of a place to eat. We strolled downhill along Santa Catarina street -- a well-known pedestrianized part of the city -- and after ruling out a few places popped into the Restaurante Salmao. Richard and I had the Francesina and Susan and Pauline had grilled codfish with potatoes. 

The Francesina or "little french girl" is a Portuguese take on the croque madame but instead of the traditional sandwich with a thin layer of ham, cheese and an egg on top, this includes ham, pork slice, sausage, topped by egg and Swiss cheese - all smothered in a tomato-like sauce. 

Francesina - quite a plateful!

After dinner we took an Uber back to the hotel and closed the book on our first night in Porto!