The plan today was to maximize our morning before the rains hit at noon as forecast on our Weather Channel app. We walked up the hill to the Bolhao market, which had beautiful flowers but was otherwise disappointingly deserted. Then we stepped into the Majestic Cafe for coffee and Portuguese French toast. We took our time in this posh 1920s-era coffee house admiring the guilded mirrors and marble tables. The placemats bragged that “in an era of coffee shops filled with plotting revolutionaries and listless elderly people that this was finally a place of style frequented by the ladies of high society.” I paraphrase, but this was the gist of it. Maybe it’s just me but I’ll take revolutionaries and grandpas over snobby rich biddies any day.
As we were leaving, the rain started to fall. Uh oh. It was only 10:30am. We bought umbrellas and tried to continue walking through the shopping district but the rain intensified so we headed back to the apartment. It was a long, soggy walk back, but Melina delighted in hopping over puddles and Diane happily sang “RAIN RAIN GO AWAY” from her sopping wet stroller. Back in the apartment we were all soaked to the bone but somehow still smiling.
Secretly, Zach and I were actually pretty nervous..what the heck will we do if it rains for the rest of trip as predicted??
We played and rested for a while while the rain slowed and then worsened and then slowed again. Finally around 1:30pm some blue sky peeked out and we saw our chance. We rushed the girls outside and over the bridge back to the wine caves of Vila Nova de Gaia. Zach had a plan of making it to the cave at the top of the hill before the rain started again and then hopping from door to door sampling port for the rest of the day. I was…skeptical. The girls hadn’t napped, we had left the stroller at the apartment (it had proved too difficult to steer with an umbrella in hand on steep sidewalks), and the sky still looked ominous.
But guess what: Zach’s plan worked. We had a fantastic day. Zach and I sipped port while the girls pretended they were super heroes in the wine caves. It never started raining again so we were able to amble through lush winery gardens to see cats, chickens, and even a very ostentatious peacock.
The girls behaved beautifully in the wine caves and actually enjoyed learning about the winemaking process. At one point when they were being particularly angelic, Melina needed to take a trip to the restroom. European stalls are small and completely closed, so she went in without me while I waited on a bench just outside. After a few minutes some ladies came to wait for their turn and I asked Melina if she was done yet. In her shrill and top volume voice, she announced, “MOM, I’M POOPING! AND YOU JUST INTERRUPTED ME!” The ladies immediately burst into uncontrollable laughter. As luck would have it, they were British and had understood every word.
Tomorrow we leave Porto for the University town of Coimbra. The forecast still calls for rain, but we are no longer worried.
Traveling Together 