22 Apr -- Afternoon in Porto

I arrived at the airport and took a taxi to the hotel. I used Holiday Inn reward points to book four nights at the hotel, the last of Frank's super-duper Gold Premier-level points from all his business travel. When I got there, they upgraded me to a suite on the 20th floor with a river view.  It was a little overwhelming after staying in hostels, shared rooms, dormitories, and small European hotels for a month!  Unfortunately, the only clothes I had were the "quick-dry" camp shirts, merino wool t-shirt, hiking boots, and zipper hiking pants/shorts combo.  I felt under dressed as I was surrounded by all the men and women in business attire.  I had purchased a scarf when I was in Burgos, so I tucked the scarf around my neck and with my black jacket over the camp shirt it didn't look too bad!  I took off in search of a cafe because the hotel restaurant was crowded with well-dressed patrons.  My GPS took me down to the river where there were many tourist cafes, bars, restaurants, and corner grocery shops.  Casually-dressed tourists in tennis shoes, jeans, and sweat-shirts were everywhere and I felt more comfortable. The river was beautiful! The buildings of the city spill down the hillside and crowd around both riverbanks and the activity flows into the river where port wine barges, river taxis, tourist sight-seeing boats, and sailboats navigate in both directions; sometimes coming precariously close to one another.

It was sunny, but still cold. I wanted to find the Camino Pilgrim's office and official tourist information center so I looked it up on Google maps, put the route into my GPS, and took off across the river to the old town.  The GPS showed a walking route through a tunnel to the cathedral.  Well, when I got across the bridge, the tunnel was blocked to pedestrian traffic due to construction. So I had to take the alternate route - up the hillside! I looked at the staircases ahead and almost gave up. But I could only see a short section of stairs and I decided that if I just took it slowly I'd be ok.  Each time I reached a summit, I turned a corner and there was ANOTHER flight of stairs. THIRTY TWO flights all together. When, huffing and puffing all the way, I finally reached the top; I heard a crowd of people coming toward me. I wondered if they had taken a different route up because some had canes and they didn't look winded at all.  When I turned the corner, I found the hillside tram from which the group had just disembarked.  Cursing under my breath, I nearly thew my GPS phone into the gutter. Instead, I took note of the route for my eventual descent.  I found the Cathedral, the Camino route, and the tourist information center. Armed with maps and a list of Portuguese albergues, I headed back to the hotel to plot our Camino trek.  I stopped at a corner store and picked up a coke, some ham, cheese, and a baguette for dinner.  Called it a night, watched the sunset over the city from my 20th floor balcony. A good day indeed.