Portgual River Cruise: Pre-Cruise Day 1

Saturday, May 23-Sunday, May 24: ORD > EWR > OPO

We had time for some of our typical Saturday morning routine before saying goodbye to the kitties and heading to the airport at 10am to meet up with Mr. E's mom L at the Polaris Club for our flight to Porto via Newark. This was one of the shortest international flights we've taken lately, only 7ish hours, so we barely had time to rest a bit after the dinner service. The plane was smaller, too, and I had to laugh at myself for lamenting the size of our business class seats compared to some of our other recent trips. Um, yeah, because I've gotten a little too used to those lovely larger private pods on ANA!

I watched two films during the flight, a Chinese thriller, Malice, and a British satire, Fackham Hall. I also finished my French book Madeleine avant l'aube during the trip and was blown away by the twist at the end of the second chapter. This was originally the selection for my French book club in June, but the group decided at the previous meeting (which I missed) to change to something different. Unfortunately, I had already ordered this book from Amazon (tried to avoid but couldn't find it anywhere else!), so I planned to just return it. However, when I completed the return process, the seller provided a refund but didn't require the book itself to actually be sent back, so I figured I may as well read it anyway. So glad I did! Definitely not an uplifting book or light reading, but I really appreciated the author's talent and approach once I reached that unexpected moment partway through the novel.

As we approached Porto around 7am, I could see a thick layer of clouds and fog hanging over the ocean and the coast, pretty much blocking the entire view of the water near the shoreline. The plane started to descend for the landing but ended up doing a fly by instead, and the captain announced that the weather conditions prevented landing on the planned runway, so we had to instead circle around to come in from the north. Apparently, this isn't unusual for the area, and we got a much better view of the country as we completed the U-turn for a successful and extremely soft landing on the next attempt.

Going through immigration and customs was easy and relatively fast, and we then took a taxi to our hotel, the Sheraton Porto Hotel & Spa. We had reserved three rooms for two nights to make sure we could get into the rooms as soon as we arrived on Sunday morning rather than having to wait several hours for a typical afternoon check-in. However, the front desk staff who helped us initially had some trouble finding our reservations. Good thing I had the info printed out along with the email interaction with a member of their guest services team confirming the two nights! We finally got checked in, but then the keys for Mr. E and me didn't work, so we had to go back to the front desk to get them re-made and also make sure they worked in the Club Lounge, since our room rate included access to that for daily breakfast and Happy Hour.

After a bit of a rest (Mr. E and L) and workout (me), we met up around 10:30am in the restaurant for the buffet breakfast. So nice that it was open until 11am so we had plenty of time after our morning arrival! We were all still feeling the effects of jet lag and lack of sleep, however, so after breakfast we just all went back to our rooms for a few hours and managed to get some sleep.

In the afternoon, we headed off to Serralves, which I had read about in the visitor's book in the hotel room. This destination features a large park, contemporary art museum, art deco villa, tea house, treetop walk, and cinema facility. We started at the art museum and all agreed that the current exhibitions didn't really speak to us much, except for the book at the end of one shelf of an installation that just coincidentally happens to be about Frank Lloyd Wright and Oak Park! (book with small red square on the cover)

From the museum, we strolled through the park towards the Villa, stopping along the way to admire some of the outdoor sculptures that are scattered throughout the grounds.

The exhibition in the Villa focused on Joan Miro, which was a bit more interesting, along with some other contemporary sculptures and artwork.

The interior architecture of the building was lovely, with some unique parquet floors and lots of marble in the restrooms (definitely worth a visit!), but I think my favorite part was the exterior view of the facade with its symmetrical landscaping and water features. A seagull seemed to appreciate the fountain, too.

Mr. E and I wanted to check out the treetop walk, and L decided she'd take a pause at the peaceful and secluded tea house, draped with wisteria vines and looking out over the former clay tennis court. From the elevated boardwalk amongst the trees, Mr. E and I enjoyed the panorama over different parts of the park, including the lake, and also got to see a group of young performers working on some sort of dance experience in a grove below the walkway.

We rejoined L at the tea house and then headed towards the exit, where we had much better luck with getting an Uber back to the hotel than when we had tried for a ride share on our way to the park (ended up having the hotel staff call a taxi instead, which was much faster).

We got back to the hotel around 5:30pm, which was perfect timing for the daily Happy Hour in the New Yorker Bar for Club Lounge access guests. There were enough food offerings for all of us, so that became our dinner as we relaxed for a couple of hours. In addition to the wine and beer provided, Mr. E decided to purchase a bottle of a local vinho tinto, based on a staff recommendation. Great choice!

By 8:15pm, I was fading fast, so I took my small glass of port up to my room, where I finished up the evening with my yoga practice and then crashed. I didn't even drink the port!!! Good thing there will be more opportunities for tastings as part of our cruise this week.