Porto, Part 2
Hey, it's raining! again and always. My umbrella become permanently attached to my hand, either open or shut. But never mind, out we went to see the Sao Bento Train Station. This was built from 1900-1916 on the grounds of an older convent. There's a large hall where a board displays destinations and track numbers, and a steel truss structure behind it where you board the trains. The hall is tiled with the same blue tiles you see everywhere in Porto; there are three levels showing scens from Porto history. One shows a woman carrying a folded umbrella, so I suppose the weather has always been wet!
In front of the station, we boarded a bus to take us to Serralves Park and the Fundacao Serralves. (Note that I pronounced this as if it were Spanish: sehr-all-ves, but in Portuguese it's Sehr-alj so it took a while to reach an understanding with the bus driver.) And of course we first boarded the bus going the wrong way, so had to get off and take the right one back to the station and on to the Park.
For the first time ever, we were checked by the Bus Police for valid tix. All passengers passed except for the young woman seated across from us with a toddler. They let her ride to her destnation, then followed her off the bus, As the bus drove away from the stop, we watched through the rain streaked window as the two policemen, the woman and the toddler huddled beneath a bus shelter to discuss the citation.
We hopped off the bus (the driver stopped in the middle of the block for us maybe because he was so kind and it was raining so hard and he wanted to spare us as much as possible), and sloshed our way through the puddles to the Museum of Contemporary Art. Several books and web sites had mentioned this as the best museum in Porto, and all I can say is: don't bother unless you're completely enthralled by contemporary art.
Still, there were a few installations of interest. One was entitled: Room for a Wave, which you viewed through a glass door. A metal shipping container with a large glass window was half full of mud with a single light bulb ssuspended from the ceiling. The placard noted that it was made of "bomb, mud, lamp." I don't know where the bomb came into play.
Another (and probably my favorite in this museum) was a wrecked Jaguar car upside down with its radio playing Brazilian dance music. The car was scraped, crushed and rusted, with a piece of one tailight hanging down forlornly in the back.
The bookstore contained a surprising number of English books, including Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak!
As we waited for the bus to take us back to town, we admired a large poster at the bus stop hyping Andorra as a ski destination. (Another first - you ever see a poster about Andorra as a tourist spot?) Once we got on the bus, I scored a copy of the January edition of the monthly BLITZ newspaper (motto: Todo sobre a music na optimus) and looked at the pix of Pearl Jam, who is coming to Portugal in July 2010.
We got off the bus close to the Torre Clerigos, one of Porto's main symbols and tourist spots. When we got to the door, we read that it was closed for lunch until 2 pm. At the Pao Quente Confiteria Meiralhas, a block or so back, we peered in the window at small groups of locals having coffe and a pastry. This was the spot for us for lunch. Of course we couldn't read anything off the menu, but I just pointed around at things, and we got something filled with fish, something else with sausage, and a round pastry with a tophat with a filling that tasted uncomfortably like some kind of organ meat. There was a steady stream of local women coming in for bread and pastries to go, wearing British-style overall aprons over their dresses, with thick black tights and yellow or orange Crocs (an interesting fashion statement), but plenty of tourists, too, all waiting for Clerigos to open. At 2:00, everyone stood up and left at once.
The tower is
More TBP
In front of the station, we boarded a bus to take us to Serralves Park and the Fundacao Serralves. (Note that I pronounced this as if it were Spanish: sehr-all-ves, but in Portuguese it's Sehr-alj so it took a while to reach an understanding with the bus driver.) And of course we first boarded the bus going the wrong way, so had to get off and take the right one back to the station and on to the Park.
For the first time ever, we were checked by the Bus Police for valid tix. All passengers passed except for the young woman seated across from us with a toddler. They let her ride to her destnation, then followed her off the bus, As the bus drove away from the stop, we watched through the rain streaked window as the two policemen, the woman and the toddler huddled beneath a bus shelter to discuss the citation.
We hopped off the bus (the driver stopped in the middle of the block for us maybe because he was so kind and it was raining so hard and he wanted to spare us as much as possible), and sloshed our way through the puddles to the Museum of Contemporary Art. Several books and web sites had mentioned this as the best museum in Porto, and all I can say is: don't bother unless you're completely enthralled by contemporary art.
Still, there were a few installations of interest. One was entitled: Room for a Wave, which you viewed through a glass door. A metal shipping container with a large glass window was half full of mud with a single light bulb ssuspended from the ceiling. The placard noted that it was made of "bomb, mud, lamp." I don't know where the bomb came into play.
Another (and probably my favorite in this museum) was a wrecked Jaguar car upside down with its radio playing Brazilian dance music. The car was scraped, crushed and rusted, with a piece of one tailight hanging down forlornly in the back.
The bookstore contained a surprising number of English books, including Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak!
As we waited for the bus to take us back to town, we admired a large poster at the bus stop hyping Andorra as a ski destination. (Another first - you ever see a poster about Andorra as a tourist spot?) Once we got on the bus, I scored a copy of the January edition of the monthly BLITZ newspaper (motto: Todo sobre a music na optimus) and looked at the pix of Pearl Jam, who is coming to Portugal in July 2010.
We got off the bus close to the Torre Clerigos, one of Porto's main symbols and tourist spots. When we got to the door, we read that it was closed for lunch until 2 pm. At the Pao Quente Confiteria Meiralhas, a block or so back, we peered in the window at small groups of locals having coffe and a pastry. This was the spot for us for lunch. Of course we couldn't read anything off the menu, but I just pointed around at things, and we got something filled with fish, something else with sausage, and a round pastry with a tophat with a filling that tasted uncomfortably like some kind of organ meat. There was a steady stream of local women coming in for bread and pastries to go, wearing British-style overall aprons over their dresses, with thick black tights and yellow or orange Crocs (an interesting fashion statement), but plenty of tourists, too, all waiting for Clerigos to open. At 2:00, everyone stood up and left at once.
The tower is
More TBP