Penguins In Portugal #1

On Wednesday, March 13^th, Steph and I headed out for Portugal. This is somewhere that both of us had wanted to go and we were excited to get to experience it together.

We flew into Porto Wednesday night, which is a town in northern Portugal. Since our flight was taking us there we had decided to spend one night in Porto before heading to Lisbon the next day.

The minute we walked into our hostel in Porto I knew it was going to be a fun trip. The receptionist came running to the desk from another room saying something about burning a cake. Sure enough, after we got settled in our room we walked downstairs to find fresh, free homemade chocolate cake. So that was a nice start.

The next day we decided to do a free walking tour of Porto. We figured this would be the best way to learn about the city. The tour was extremely interesting and we both fell in love with Porto instantly. In hindsight we should have stayed more than one day because we just loved it so much.

At Cafe Magestic

Beautiful painted tiles that were all over the buildings

The tour took us all around the city and we had the chance to see some amazing architecture. Our tour guide told us some interesting things but this is what really stuck with me.

Similarities between Porto and Harry Potter

1. J.K. Rowling was living in Porto around the time she began writing the series

2. It is believed (but not confirmed) that she began writing in this café, which Steph and I unknowingly ate ice cream in at about 10 am that day.

3. Portugal had a terrible dictator by the name of Antonio de Oliveira Salazar

which is also the name of the founder of the Slytherin House.

4. The University students in Portugal where uniforms, and part of the uniforms includes a CAPE, much like the uniforms at Hogwarts.

After the walking tour we decided to do a tour of a wine cellar. Porto is known for port wine, which is sweeter than normal wine. This is due to the fact that the fermentation is stopped early so that not all of the sugar has turned to alcohol yet. Brandy is also added to port wine, giving it much higher alcohol content than normal wine.

The wine tour was one of our favorite things and we got to try some really tasty stuff!