The Magical City of Porto, Portugal, Porto, Portugal

I am part Portuguese. For all of my life, I’ve been told we were related to Portuguese royalty. Turns out my grandmother had a very wealthy great aunt who left her some money in 1952. It wasn’t a lot, but my grandmother said it certainly helped while they were raising their family. So much for royalty, but a pretty cool story! Needless to say, I was very excited for my first trip ever to Portugal. We started our trip in none other than Porto, the world capital of Port Wine.

We took the train from Santiago de Compostela Spain to Porto. The train is a great way to travel around Europe. But, it does take some research to find the best routes and prices. There are many apps, and some work better in various countries than others. We found moving from one country to another, as in this case, booking directly with the train Renfe, was the best way to go. It was about a 3 hour train ride. (this was May 2022, when masks were still required on public transportation in much of Europe)

The other thing about train travel is that you find some of the best cappuccinos and croissants right in the train station. And the cost is about 1/3 of our local Starbucks!

More beauty of train travel is that you move at a very high speed, but you get to see the beautiful countryside along the way. ...... (follow the instructions below for accessing the rest of this article).