The Bearded Globetrotter

Today was the last day of our organized tour. We still have 2 more days in Porto with Bonnie and Tony to explore on our own tho!

We started with another walk around the area, to where we had not been yet. Our tour director (Daniel) took us to Mercado do Bolhão which has served as a local market for more than 100 years.

From there it was a short trek to a tile painting class. I found I got WAY TO invested in the painting and enjoyed and was frustrated by it at the same time – I enjoyed the painting and was frustrated that I was not good at it LOL.

The rest of the afternoon was ours, so we walked to the riverfront and found a nice place for a beer and bite to eat. Since we were in the area, we checked out the Church of St. Francis with amazing gold leaf covered chestnut carvings, no pics allowed tho 😭.

On the same ticket was the catacombs, which was pretty interesting in and of itself – I’ve never been in a catacombs before, this one I understand is kinda catacombs-light, but interesting.

We finished the afternoon with a tour of the opulent “Palace of Stock” – a historical stock exchange, still in use. The building architecture was stunning and glad that we took that tour.

The final-final activity was a group goodbye dinner, our last chance to chat and enjoy each others company. Of all our past tours this one is I think the first where there was not a person that I would internally roll my eyes over – everyone was great and Mel and I enjoyed our time with them ( and Bonnie and Tony are pretty great too of course 😉 )

Tomorrow we are on our own, and we have a few things in mind to do – but until then – to the pics!