Summer is not the best time to be a tourist in a city. It’s been plenty hot on these brilliantly sunny days. Being tourists, wandering around, is draining and we need frequent sit-down stops at cafes. So on our third day in Porto, we decided to take the bus to the beach in Matosinhos. We got the 501 bus at Praça do Trindade and rode west for about 30 minutes. When we got off the bus, the beautifully cool Atlantic breeze immediately made Matosinhos our new favorite place.
We walked a couple of blocks to the actual beach, a very wide expanse of tan sand, extending from the paved road and bike path. No dunes, very much like a “boardwalk” beach, but no endless row of concessions, just a few cafes with umbrellas shading the outdoor tables. We stopped at the first one for fresh orange juice. Oranges from the Algarve in the south and pineapples from the Azores are popular fruits. Fresh juice is the best way to get no-artificial-sweetener beverages.
The surf was dramatic — rows of breaking waves, up to four layers back. The water in front of and behind the breaking waves was full of surfers. Most seemed to be taking lessons. Only occasionally did one of them get a good wave ride. We could see for at least a mile down the straight beach with continual lines of surf.
We waded in the water and took pictures and wave movies as we walked that mile south to the Castelo do Queijo (translation: Castle of Cheese). I read that that the cheese had to do with the blocks of stone that looked like large rounds of cheese. That may be the explanation, but if you remove the lookout towers, the whole fort looks like a round of cheese too. The fort is still in the hands of a military group — the Northern Commandos, I think. It cost 50 euro-cents to visit inside. Good views of surf again!
We continued south along the coast into the Porto neighborhood of Foz and finally got to the mouth of the Rio Douro. It was very pleasant walking with a wide bike & walking path. In the Foz section, there were many closeup views of narrower beaches with beautiful warm red rocks. There were great breaking waves but these beaches weren’t safe for surfing or even swimming on this surf-active day.
After walking inland along the river for a ways, we finally decided it was time to jump on the bus. We had a transit card, after all. The buses are really easy to understand, with clear numbers. We had learned enough geography to recognize a lot of end-of-line labels on the front of the buses, and most buses radiated out of the area where we were staying anyway. So almost any bus was a safe bet as long as it was heading into town.
Surf pictures to come…
We arrived back in town next to São Bento train station, also a central Metro station. There was a percussion band playing in the street. We also went inside the train station to see its famous blue tile walls depicting scenes from Portuguese history.
We ended the day with dinner at a Japanese-Portuguese fusion restaurant across the street from our apartment. We had vegetable pancakes, held together with a non-dairy cream sauce. Interesting, but not what we expected!