This post has been gathering dust for 3 days as we had lousy connection in Lisbon and little time to do battle with it. Here it is without my planned pictures just to get it up. Posting from Evora in the Pestana  Monastery from a former monks cell.

In short we joined our OAT tour group after our continued museum/art gallery extravaganza and began doing some touring of historical and interesting places. Our hotel, the Grand Hotel Porto, is located on a walking street with permits for buses and taxis to pick up and drop off passengers. It is an old hotel with much history harking back to the times of British desire for Port. Actually Porto predates the British by many centuries as the Romans founded a settlement here, but the hotel isn’t quite that old. What it lacks in some amenities it makes up for in location. 

We have been to the northwest to the Douro Valley where Port   the comes from and we tasted it on location. and we have been to the northeast where “green” wines come from and where the country claims to be the to be the birthplace of Henry the Navigator is in that region. The “green wine” not so much, the pastries filled with pumpkin sugar are phenomenal. The green means young, not color and it is sparkling and served chilled.  

After touring closer in parts of Porto today and a lovely lunch in Gaia – the section of town across the Douro River Carol and I were dropped as the Casa De Musica a modern concert hall designed by Rehm Koohlhaus, a Dutch architect. We took a tour of this unique venue and were again overwhelmed by the creativity of the architect and the community that has adapted to the shapes provided.