1) A cool refreshing fog — not wildfire smoke, actual fog — saturated the city when I stepped out at 9 AM after packing my things. A friend had recommended Manteigaria for pastel de nata, and I had happened to pass it a day or two before. It was easily found, and they understood my linguistically-challenged order for cold brew and a croissant. (I just couldn’t handle pastel de nata for breakfast this day.)
1a) While I was waiting for my order to be filled, I found a place near the pickup counter where I wouldn’t be in the way. A young man, possibly German, asked me “Are you waiting?” What he really meant was “Are you in line to place an order?” I shook my head no . . . but he just turned where he was to face the register, which was not the direction the line was to form. In about 15 seconds, I was surrounded by new arrivals who all thought the line was supposed to go into this remote corner. (Have you seen this happen before, when the line just goes places it isn’t supposed to go? I got bumped from a flight in San Francisco once many years ago, and that line wove among the seats until someone marshaled everyone in to proper order.)
1b) What . . . what was it that possessed me to order cold brew, a thing I have never done before? The benefit, aside from the caffeine, was to remember my Granny Dimmick’s story about iced coffee. She and her girlfriends had gone to dinner at a new hotel in New Orleans (so this would have been in the 1910s), and “retired to the lounge” as one did for their coffee. They saw “iced coffee” on the menu and ordered it as a novelty. Apparently it was just awful and she never ordered it again.
Whereas outside the church influencers were modeling.
2) After my little breakfast I walked about, watching Porto and its shoppers waking up. The architectural attraction in this neighborhood is the Chapel of Saint Catherine, extravagantly tiled in blue and white. But to walk inside, it was immediately apparent that this was no tourist attraction but an active community of faith. The church was more than half full of people sitting very straight and very quietly in the pews, in prayer and private contemplation. Any tourists, like me, who remained for any time also kept quiet and still. There was no roaming about taking photographs.
2a) When I went to Venice in 2013 I said what we needed more is civic architecture with polychrome marble. Now I say that we need more civic architecture with decorative exterior tile.
3) My time in Porto was coming to an end, and I didn’t have the focus or imagination to rush about cramming in one more site. I spent the rest of the morning writing.
4) Contrary to Lisbon, the Porto platform for the train was thronged with passengers, all with a lot of luggage. My car was full.
5) Adeus, Porto! I am so happy to have made your acquaintance, but you have so many secrets still to reveal. Perhaps I will return one day.
6) Driving uphill from the Coimbra station, it pleased me to see a hand pop out of a car to wave at the driver. It made the place feel welcoming right at the start.
7) We seemed to drive perpetually uphill, but eventually came to the top — which I also recognized as the famous university. Turns out my new hotel, the Sapientia, is quite close indeed to the library.
8) If my hotel in Porto was posh and plush, this hotel is light and spare. In Porto I had an enormous window overlooking the back alley (which has its charms) and enormous blue velvet curtains that operated with a lightswitch and closed with magnets. Here I have smaller windows overlooking a bend in the Mondego River.
9) After a nap (how rare on this vacation!) I woke in somber mood, dressed, and descended infinite steps in search of some dinner. I avoided some street drama by a few minutes. A steep twisty intersection comes down to the main drag. One of the people I passed was a younger man with very long dreadlocks, shorts, and no shirt, squatting on the pavement going through a backpack. A couple minutes later, as soon as I hit the main street, I heard sounds of an altercation. Turning around, there was that younger man mixing it up with another man, hurling threats with very little room between them. I continued on.
10) Over dinner, I finished The Grand Affair, John Singer Sargent’s biography. (Spoiler alert: he dies at the end.) A campari spritz suited my mood: effervescence masking bitter subtlety. Pork croquettes, risotto with pesto and tiny shrimp.
11) And then the loooonnnggggggg trek back to the hotel up all those stairs.
12) Tomorrow, a guide is going to show me all the sights. In the meantime — sleep in this new modern environment.
