Portugal River Cruise Days 1 & 2: Porto

Monday, May 25: Hotel Time, Boarding the Boat

We had time for a much more leisurely morning on Monday, so we could all sleep in a bit and then meet up for the breakfast buffet when we were ready. I took a walk before my workout and then joined L in the restaurant for a relaxing meal. Mr. E came down a bit later, and then we all relaxed for a bit after breakfast before Mr. E had to check out of his room at noon. The three of us headed to the Club Lounge for reading and computer time before the 2pm check-out for L and me. Then I had a fabulous massage at 2:30pm (one of the best I've ever had) while Mr. E and L had a light lunch in the New Yorker Bar. 

Around 4:30pm, we got a taxi to the quay to board our boat. Our taxi driver was multilingual and so friendly, providing us with lots of information about Porto, its history, and architecture as he drove us across the Rio Doro to Vila Nova de Gaia where our boat was moored. He was quite adept at navigating the narrow and winding streets down to the riverside! I also very much appreciated his term "hotel boat" to refer to our ship. We'd never heard that term before, but it's actually quite accurate! 

Our ship is the Infante Don Henrique as part of the CroisiEurope fleet of riverboats. The boat has three decks of cabins with the restaurant on the main deck, Lounge on the middle deck, and compact "swimming pool" on the sundeck. There's also a small elevator, which is nice for the passengers with more limited mobility.

We were some of the first guests to arrive, so we didn't need to wait very long to check in. Mr. E decided to go for a run while L and I settled into our rooms and unpacked. We met up in the Lounge for the welcome cocktail and brief crew orientation. One group of passengers was late to arrive, so the crew decided to postpone the full introductory presentation to the next evening. We then headed to dinner and met our three table companions for the week, D, L, and P, a group of female friends from England who know each other from Pilates class. 

As usual, dinner was a multi-course experience with attentive service, plentiful portions, and lovely presentation. I had confirmed my food allergies with the maitre d' when we boarded and was quite pleased with my special selections. Some passengers went on a post-dinner Porto by night tour, but we opted to skip that excursion since it was already rather late and we didn't think we'd be able to see that much.

The one wrinkle in everything was that I had noticed earlier in the day that the detailed cruise schedule and information in our cabins didn't match with the description and vouchers that had been provided to us by CroisiEurope at the end of April. I had quite a discussion with the crew at the Front Desk to clarify and confirm and made sure to book all of the remaining excursions for L, Mr. E, and me. Unfortunately, one of the excursions that Mr. E and I had paid for in advance got cancelled, but we hadn't been notified and of course had already paid for it. So we had to switch to the other option but then also had to pay for that tour at the higher on-board price. I emailed Croisi about the issue and to request a reimbursement will need to follow-up when we're back home. The other unfortunate part about the changed schedule is that we had anticipated having a full day in Porto at the end of the voyage and were planning to do a hop-on hop-off tour with several stops, which is also one of the reasons we didn't do more in Porto on Monday prior to boarding. Instead, we'll only have tomorrow afternoon for free time to explore more.

Tuesday, May 26: Morning Tour, Afternoon Exploration

I took a short walk along the river path prior to my Zumba workout in the cabin (my usual travel routine) and then joined Mr. E and L in the restaurant for the buffet breakfast before we boarded the bus for our morning tour of Porto. We were with the other English speakers on board, so we had a lovely small group of 15 with the guide. The French-speaking group is much larger, and I have to admit I do love to hear French spoken and to be able to speak with the crew in French as well. Definitely a perk of this cruise line!

Our tour guide, Maria, was very knowledgeable and passionate about Porto history, culture, and architecture, so we got lots of information throughout our time together. We started with a tour of a church with a rather plain facade and a surprisingly extravagant Baroque interior (photos prohibited inside).

Since we were a small group, our guide was also able to take us to see the catacombs, where local families have purchased crypts, some of which are still available for future generations. 

Our next stop was the Pálacio da Bolsa, right next door. This is the headquarters of commercial interests in Porto and has some very impressive rooms, especially the Arabic room (or "wow room," as our guide put it) along with a small space that was Gustave Eiffel's office when he was here in the country to design one of the six bridges in Porto. 

We headed back to the ship for lunch. In the afternoon, Mr. E and I went to explore more of Porto, crossing the two-level Dom Luis bridge on the lower level and then climbing lots of stairs to our destination... Starbucks! We had seen many buildings earlier in the day with the iconic azulejos tiles that Porto is known for, and I loved seeing how even places such as Starbucks and McDonald's are in buildings with that special decoration.

We were both quite warm and sweaty by the time we got back to the boat, since the temperature was in the high 80s in the afternoon (and due to get even warmer over the next few days). I decided to take a dip in the pool, which was quite refreshing but a wee bit too shallow and small for any sort of real swimming! After my shower, I had time for my yoga practice before going to dinner, and then Mr. E and L attended the post-dinner entertainment of a Fado performance in the Lounge.

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.

Japan Tour: Kyoto Part 1 & End

Thursday, March 26-Friday, March 27: DIY Kyoto Day, KIK > TPE > ORD

Our last full day in Japan was a free day in Kyoto on Thursday, so we luxuriated in a later 9am breakfast (and saw many others of our group doing the same!). We fetched second coffee at a nearby Starbucks and savored our final Sakura match doughnut.

I spent several hours in the morning doing homework while Mr. E worked on packing and figuring out the necessary Tetris arrangement to fit all of our new stuff in the bags!

Then we headed off to Kyoto Station and bought tickets for the train to Osaka airport for the next day. We explored the expansive and airy station as we climbed up to the sky deck and then stopped for lunch at a Chinese restaurant on the upper level food court. Thanks to Google translate and my basic Japanese, I was able to communicate about my allium allergy with the very friendly and patient server, so we had a lovely lunch with seafood, tofu, and veggies.

The station had views from so many perspectives, including a big window in the lounge area of the ladies' restroom! We crossed over the sky bridge to descend on the other side of the station and discovered the amazing Lego model and view to the Kyoto Tower.

 

For more views, we visited the Tokyo Tower across the street before taking the subway to the famous Nishiki Market to stroll through all of the food and craft stalls.

After walking back to the hotel, we attempted to have Happy Hour in the lobby bar while I did more homework, but that area and the restaurant were mostly booked for two private parties, meaning that no dinner service was available for hotel guests. Grr! Why wasn't there some sort of info or warning provided about that??? I finished up some homework in my room, and we then walked a few blocks to the Courtyard Marriott to have dinner at their restaurant, Le Bon Vivre. We enjoyed great service and yummy food with a cheese plate, nicoise salad, and steak frites. We struck out on the Sakura macaron but were still quite pleased with the meal.

When we got back to the hotel, there was just enough time for Mr. E to hit last call at the lobby bar before we watched an episode of "Scarpetta" and then wrapped up the evening.

On Friday, we grabbed a quick breakfast at the hotel and then left at 7:45am to make sure we could catch our 8:22am train to Osaka Airport (KIX). We took the JR Haruka train that just happened to have special Hello Kitty decor, so of course I thought of R when I saw all of that.  

We were too early to check in for our flight on Eva Airlines to Taipei, so we wandered around a bit and Mr. E bought a strap to help secure Bean since we were checking that bag in for the return trip. We almost had to check in our other carry-on bags due to weight limits, but we managed to talk our way out of that by assuring the staff that we'd redistribute items among the bags to even things out. Phew!

Then we checked out the lounge and I got some more homework done while Mr. E explored and found a few more Lucky Cats to add last-minute to our ever-growing collection. The flight from KIX to TPE was only 2.5 hours and included a tasty Japanese cuisine lunch. I watched a great French movie, L'Inconnu de la Grande Arche, about the architect who designed the Arche de la Défense in Paris.

During our 4+ hour layover in Taipei, we enjoyed the offerings in the lounge, including a bunch of steamed veges (which we'd been missing so much!), and I did more homework and also caught up on some work email. Then we had our 13.5 hour flight to O'Hare with more Hello Kitty swag (slippers)!

We both had the International menu meal for dinner, and I later had just some fruit and crackers for breakfast. I managed to get nearly seven hours of sleep in the comfy lie-flat pod and also watched two enjoyable films: The Shadow's Edge (action movie with Jackie Chan) and the Chinese comedy Number 2. We made it home to the kitties in the evening and crashed pretty quickly after all of the travel.

Lots of new experiences to reflect on, and we definitely want to go back to revisit a couple of spots and explore more of the vast and diverse country. And since I'm planning to continue my Japanese classes, my language skills should be much improved by our next trip!