Porto

 

We arrived in Western Europe via the tiled city of Porto, Portugal. In this beautiful city, buildings of all kinds have tiled facades and even the sidewalks are decorated in mosaics. Some tile installations date back to the 1700s, while others have a more modern appeal, and some of the tile work resembles our family kitchens circa the 1970s. Some of the tiles have texture, some have graffiti sprayed about them, some are high up on buildings where they can only be seen from the top-floor windows from across the street (the bottom picture is the view from our top-floor room where the green tile and carved stone were invisible from the sidewalk below). The intricacy, time, craftsmanship, and expense put into these facades is amazing. I have not yet seen anything similar in our own USA. Aside from appreciating the tile work, we also checked out Porto's live music and street art, port wine, olives, Super Bock, sangria, and pastels de nata (egg custard in a crisp pastry). The ubiquitous shaved cod and whole octopus on a plate were not our jam. Neither were the tourist crowds! We were not the only visitors to this lovely city. Each of us noticed that the streets of Porto had the most American accents we have heard since our departure back in January.  Unfortunately, Porto was our only stop in Portugal, from there we headed north into Spain to begin the Camino de Santiago de Compostela...