May 20. OPO-LGW

Another transit day. Travel involves a lot of this inefficient use of time, waits punctuated by brief bursts of activity. 

Fortunately, we had access to the boat for much of the day. Even though we and our bags had to be out of our cabin by 9am, there were several groups who had transfers and flights arranged by Riviera who could stay on board, so the staff didn't mind us doing the same. We thought of going to see more attractions, but the only one I could think of was the Stock Exchange Palace and that felt like a palace too far. So after hanging around a while we walked down to the Atlantic Ocean and back. 

After some lunch I then walked up river as far as I could in the time available, then mid afternoon we took a taxi to the airport. And that was more waiting in a series of places... the duty free queue, the lounge, the gate, and sitting on the plane for a period before it went anywhere.

But really that all went pretty smoothly and uneventfully, and the flight was a bit over two hours, then an hour and a half or so back to Herne Bay.

13 May. Porto

 Today marked the end of our land tour and the start of our river cruise. So this is the plan for the next week:

This meant we had today free, and we took the morning to take it easy and get organised. At checkout time we ventured out and our first stop was the Livraria Lello bookshop, close to our hotel and reportedly an inspiration for Harry Potter (JK Rowling disputes this, but it's beautiful anyway). It was a bit of a circus with a 10 euro entry fee and long queues who were allowed in at timed intervals. The interior was crammed with adolescents. Many of the books seemed to hav unique, customised covers.

Next, I went up the Torre dos Clerigos while Lynn had a coffee. This required me to follow a convoluted path through the church and then battle the crowds up the narrow tower steps.

Can you find Lynn?

There she is!

We meandered around the city and stopped in a cafe to have a light lunch, then back to the hotel where we read for a short time before taking a taxi to the marina. The taxi took us to a place we weren't expecting, but luckily he knew better and the ship was there. When we got on our cabin was ready and we could unpack, find our way around, have a drink and dinner. Our cabin is compact but smart and the ship has only been in service for about a month.