April 16, 2014 Touring Oporto and Lunch at Lusitania Fish Restaurant

April 16, 2014 Touring Oporto and Lunch at Lusitania Fish Restaurant

We woke up and walked up the hill to the Mercado that was just opening at around 9:00 a.m. We bought rolls for 8 cents each and some fruit.  Then we walked across the street to the Super mini and bought serrano ham, mayonnaise, lettuce, cheese for sandwiches. 

Then we walked home.  Since Wily was still sleeping, we walked to a tourist information office and bought two day bus passes to tour Oporto on the orange and purple line which included about fifty stops of interest and a guided tour in about 12 languages by tape.  We spoke to the lady at the tourist information office about a tour of vineyards and she said she would check with Living Tours to see if there was a tour for the next day or Friday.  As we walked back to the apartment to get Willy we were texted that she had found us a tour for 95 Euros each for Thursday that included three Wineries and lunch.  So we got Willy and went back to the tourist information office to buy our tickets for the wine tour and then we jumped on the bus to see the sights.  There are two different routes that overlap and cross each other so we first went out to the seafood processing area by switching from one line to the other at a castle.  When we arrived at stop 18 in the Matosinhos District the harbor side of the street was filled with fishing businesses and markets and fishing boats and the other side of the street was filled with fish restaurants and open air braziers where fish and seafood was being grilled.  Since it was about 1:30 we started looking for a place to eat.  Finally I saw a couple at an outdoor table who seem to know what was good food and they recommended the restaurant where they were eating.  I looked inside and saw a wide array of seafood, including cuttlefish, calamari, red mullet, sea bream, salmon, dorado, sea bass (robalo), plaice and flounder.  Since Suzette likes sea bass, we decided to share one large sea bass for 40 Euros.  We ordered a salad and the owner/waitress suggested a bottle of the house wine, which was a vinho verde rosé also named Lusitania.  The grilled sea bass was served with a plate of boiled baby potatoes.  We loved the meal and the sharing of a communal fish was great although the fish was so large we could only eat about ¾ of it and asked the restaurant to pack the remaining amount which they did very expertly in an aluminum pan with a tight fitting lid held in place by crimped aluminum.  We got back on walked down the beach along the sandy beach that was beautiful white sand to a monument and sculpture of mourning women and caught the bus to the other side of the river to taste port.

The bus went along the beach and then along the river until it crossed the river on a large bridge and got off the bus in front of the port warehouses.  We decided to start at Kopke because it was one we had not heard of and the sign said it was the oldest house.  Every house charges for each bottle or taste of wine.  Some house makes still wines and most houses make both white and red port of all kinds.  Suzette suggested that if we were going to pay that we should get the best we could find, so we could taste the best ports.  We ordered a 10 year old aged white port and rosé port, which I had never seen and Willy plain red wine.  I had never had tasted rosé port.  It was an intermediate wine with both red and white port in it to make a rosé.  I did not like it as well as the straight white and the red.  The other interesting thing was that the port houses make regular wines also.  In fact they make all kinds of things.  The same grapes go into lots of different types of wines and most fields are not varietals or differentiated by grape.  There are up to 77 different types of grapes grown in the Douro region and they are mixed when crushed.

After Kopke we went to several other wineries.  We had a particularly nice tasting of five different wines at Ramos for 7.5 Euros.

We then took the bus back to the apartment and rested from our day’s touring because we were still stuffed from our big lunch.

Bon Appétit