The time has come to talk about Porto, Portugal! I’ll start by saying that in the past year I have heard so many amazing things about Porto, causing me to be super duper excited about visiting.

We arrived in Porto after a 7ish hour bus ride from Madrid (this one was in the daytime though) which was pretty painless. The Spanish countryside is absolutely beautiful!

When we got to Porto, it was dark. I only had 5% battery on my phone, so we rushed off the bus to hurry and get an Uber from the station to our Air BnB. The rushing part was a mistake that I’ll explain very shortly.

We got the Uber- Ubers are very cheap in Porto, it was around €5- and went to our Air BnB. On the way, the driver echoed similar praise- he informed us that Porto is still a relatively new tourist destination making it somewhere that’s pretty cheap, local feeling, and lively. We had a short ride then got to the room. I was pretty tired and determined to reset my sleep schedule so I headed right to sleep. Evan went on a walk around the neighborhood to scope out the place!

Day 1

The next morning we woke up and decided to head to the downtown area to get brunch. As I finished getting ready, I went to look for my lululemon belt bag (which had my wallet and some cash). I couldn’t find it anywhere, which of course incited panic. We walked all the way back to the station in a hurry, no luck. We decided to come back that night to see if the bus that we were on would potentially return.

The hard part about Porto was the language barrier. It was just frustratingly close to Spanish. I could speak Spanish and they could understand me somewhat, but when they would respond in Portuguese, I was unable to understand. Luckily, many people spoke English, but not those working at the bus station. You can imagine this morning was very chaotic, calling the bus headquarters and the other station; it was really not a fun time. Finally around 12 pm we were hangry and tired, but we had to make it all the way over to a mall 2 miles away to pick up my packet for the half marathon before we missed the window.

In my other post, I showed a photo of me picking up my bib for this race, but I’ll show it again.

After we got the packet, we walked downtown to get some lunch. Not too many photos were taken but I did photograph a beautiful blue and white wall downtown.

After our lunch (which was really good I just didn’t take a picture because we were so hungry), we went back to the hotel room for a rest because it had already been a stressful day and I had the half marathon the next day.

Eventually, we wandered out and found this adorable bar with very cheap Aperol Spritz and beer where they were playing live music. This place was iconic. They also served these typical Portuguese beans called Lupini beans with your drink for an extra euro. These beans tasted like butter and I absolutely loved them! I will definitely be looking for them at home. The bar was called Cafe Candelabro, and the vibes were amazing. I definitely recommend!

After this, we walked about a mile to go to a place that had come highly recommended to us by my parents who had visited Porto earlier this year! It’s called Aquele Tasco, and I would definitely recommend! I will attach a photo of the menu below.

I ordered the vegetable lasagna and it was to die for!! Below are two things my parents ordered (because Evan and I forgot to take pics😢)

One thing that’s incredibly popular in Porto is the Bacalao, or codfish. I would recommend this hands down, I just wanted carbs this night because it was the night before the race 🙂

Day 2

Alarm went off at 6 for a 9 am race start time! I got up, got dressed, and walked to a nearby cafe to grab a coffee and this gorgeous sausage stuffed pastry to fuel before the race. I had a nice morning to myself to reflect on my goals for the race 🙂

After that, we took an Uber to the race start line. There were thousands of people there stretching, warming up, and preparing for the race.

I found my corral and we were off! The race was absolutely incredible. The energy was high, they had entertainment and people were cheering us on the whole way. It was an out and back course, but we started by the ocean and ran about 5 miles inland by the river the entire time! The course is completely flat, making it very fast. I hit a PR and truly had the best time doing it.

After the race, I got my free water, banana, and of course my medal and found Evan at the finish. We walked around and admired the beautiful ocean while I basked in the post-race endorphins, then we had to Uber home to quickly change into our swimsuits for our surf lessons!

I wouldn’t recommend planning a half marathon and surfing for the same day because they are both very tiring, but because of the layout of the trip and the times for surfing lessons, this was our only option. We grabbed açaí before the lessons, and headed there. We paid €20 pp for a 2 hour surf lesson with Flower Power Surf School and it was totally worth it! I booked through Air BnB experiences and would recommend it completely.

Our lesson finished around 5 pm, so we grabbed a drink on the beach and hung out before taking an Uber back towards our place so I could shower. After that, we grabbed dinner nearby (I don’t entirely remember where, that’s how I know I was tired!)

Day 3

The next morning we were determined to wake up and head back to the beach. We Took an Uber to the same beach and hangout spot we were the day before and tried a new cafe for açaí, breakfast sandwiches, and coffee. We had the absolute best morning watching the waves and even the people walking the Portugal leg of the Camino!

We had checked out of our air bnb, and this afternoon we took a bus to Lisbon for one night before our flight to Germany.

So you may be wondering about the bag. I won’t make you wait in suspense. Every night we were in Porto we went back to the bus station, but with no luck. We had made our peace, but while we were on the bus to Lisbon our bus driver found Evan on Facebook and messaged him asking if he could send it back😭 it was so so nice. Due to problems and concerns with the post in Eastern Europe, we ended up paying him to send it to London, where we reunited with it about 1.5 months later! This dude was the best.

To sum it up, Porto was incredible. This is a traveler’s paradise. It was funky, lively, and beautiful. We absolutely want to come back and could see ourselves even spending long periods of time here. We were so active on this leg of the trip- I already want to go back!

10/10 recommend Porto to anyone who is curious. Appropriate amount of time would be around 7-8 days.