Food tour

Wednesday 23rd April 2025

Beautiful weather here in Porto and what a stunning morning view from our balcony!! Today we are going on a good tour, meeting at Bolhão market. We got there a little early and saw these sea urchins, they always remind me of New Zealand were we chatted to someone who was diving for them! We also saw all the salted cod, which I later learned has to be rehydrated over several days before you use it. Which had actually never occurred to me!!

The food tour was 3 and a half hours. It cost over 80 euros each but was highly recommended. Taste Porto is the company and it was amazing and worth the money. We spent quite a lot of time in the market going round different stalls then for a walk around town. There was lots of food, lots of wine and interesting stories about the background to the food as well. The pastry for example is Pastel du Tenegal, made by nuns in a small village called Tenegal. It is licensed by the government so only the pastry made from the village can be given the name. This means that jobs and people stay in the village. Seems like a good idea and the pastry was delicious!! Most of the food was amazing, those that weren’t were still a good introduction to typical Portuguese food. Great tour, did I mention lots of wine!!

Then we took a look around Igreja do Carmo, a beautiful church, covered in blue tiles on the outside. Next to it and part of the tour is the hidden house. It’s about 1 metre wide at the front but gets a bit wider at the back. JK Rowling lived in Porto for 2 years and you would be surprised how many places now claim that they were an aspiration for her books. This is one of them!! We also got our first Camino stamp, woohoo!!! Off to the train station which is famous for its tile work. It didn’t disappoint! Lots of tour groups here though.

And lastly for todays whistle stop tour if Porto off to the cathedral. This was important as we wanted the stamp from here, we also found a kilometre marker for our Camino!!

Down the little cobbled streets to the water from and we came across this tiny bar, definitely in the guys front room. So we had to stop for a while. It was cool and calm, few tourists, such a lovely place to just sit and admire the back streets of Porto. Later we came across what is probably the most magnificent McDonald’s building you have ever seen. Apparently if they wanted the building they had to restore it to its former glory. Looks like they have done a good job!!