Much better today

It’s amazing what 8 glasses of port and a mild state of inebriation can do to your spirits.  We spent today checking out the port-wine lodges in the town of Porto.  Porto is basically the centre of the port wine universe.  For those who don’t know, port wine is “fortified”, which basically means brandy is added to it.  Unlike Napa Valley or the Okanagan where you have to drive from winery to winery to do the tastings, here all the port wineries have lodges in Porto where they blend, age and process the wine.  The best thing is that they’re basically next door to each other.  You can also head to the wineries to do the tastings but they’re about 100 kms outta town.  We might have done that if we had time, but since we have to be back to Lisbon tomorrow, drinking at the lodges it was.  We started at the Taylor winery because it was the farthest up the hill.  No one likes walking uphill, especially buzzed.  They gave us a good intro into port and then it was onto drinking.  It just so happened they had a highly rated restaurant, Barao Fladgate, with an expansive view of Porto as well.  Though the food was underwhelming, the port was awesome.  Try a bottle of the Taylor late bottled vintage if you have the chance.  We then went off to the Caves Ramos Pinto lodge (owned by French champagne company Roederer), and finished at Sandeman’s (owned by Canadian company Seagrams).  We spent the rest of the afternoon wandering the labyrinth of steep streets and alleyways which was pretty fun.  For dinner tonight I had a Francesinha while Di stuck with a tuna baguette (not because she wanted a tuna baguette but because it was the only thing she understood on the menu).  The Francesinha is a Porto specialty sandwhich that consists of bread, cheese, an egg, and a stack of mystery meats.  After that it’s soaked in a tomato/beer gravy.  Yes it’s disgusting and yes my stomach also disagreed.  I wasn’t drunk enough to enjoy a nasty gravy-soaked-soggy sandwhich with equally soaked soggy fries.  We’re headed back to Lisbon tomorrow on the first train to try to rectify the passport situation as soon as possible.  Needless to say, I will not be picking up anyone’s change this time.