Wandering

Not much has changed since I last posted here: Denise is still in the U.S., but there’s now a plan in place for her to return, so that’s a relief. My days are still mostly centered around long dog walks in Porto, where Coco and I choose a general direction or landmark, and then make a morning of it. Porto has a charming and concentrated central historical district but there are many interesting neighborhoods that sprawl outward from that relatively small area and my goal is to walk through as many of those as possible. The upside of this plan is that I can largely avoid the tourist throngs that descend on Porto from May through October and more clearly see the city in an effort to evaluate its livability. I love Porto but the number of tourists here — and their impact on basic enjoyment of the city — is really stunning. I have mostly avoided the main tourist spots, partly because of the crush and partly because most of them don’t allow dogs.

I consider Denise and myself to be travelers, not tourists, and I know there’s some problems with that claim since we are using Airbnb for most of our housing, and they contribute to more problems than they solve, especially in places like Porto. But we are here to learn about the culture, pick up some of the language, and, most of all, try to blend in with the locals rather than stick out like a sore thumb. Since there aren’t many adventures to report, I’ll just do photos here and let the captions (and the hyper-links) do the ‘splainin’. Denise sent along some more pictures of her own from California so I’ll include those here as well. Off we go!

Okay, that’s my roundup of Porto photos. Let’s see what Denise has from L.A. She is getting to see family and do some great eating.

That’s all folks, at least for now. Hopefully, Denise will be back soon and our real adventures will resume. We still have a month in Porto before we head south for some time on the beach.