​I originally thought of going to the beach this day and actually I extended my stay one more night to enjoy Porto area more.
J, please see Porto post, told me about Guimaraes and it looked nice and so I decided to go with her.
When we bought our tickets, we couldn’t understand the woman at first because she was pronouncing the city correctly of course and we had no idea how it was pronounced.
When you get your first train ticket it’s on a rechargeable card. So it actually goes by the price you paid versus your destination for when you get checked on board. That was interesting. Though it says where you are going, but if you change your mind they can change the destination and you just pay the difference if there is one (Braga to Porto has no difference).
We got the 9.25 train there. Upon reading about it online we saw it was a UNESCO site and that the first king was from here/it was the first capital of Portugal.
We walked around the historic center, which was beautiful and had the same titles decorating the walls of buildings like Porto and then made our way to the Palace and Castle (they are 2 separate buildings).

Castle

Honestly, I don’t know much about Portugal’s history, it kind of is hidden by Spain, but it was cool touring the castle as it gave me lots of information on the founding of Portugal. In fact, the city has a big sign that says Portugal was born here.
The palace is your standard rooms with furniture.

Inside the palace

We did a combination ticket for these two as well as a third museum called Alberto Sampaio, who is someone famous from here. We thought it would be about him, but the museum is actually just named after him and the only things in it were religious works of art.
It was 4 euros student discount so not bad, but to me, only the castle was worth it.

View of the palace from the castle

Courtyard of the museum

J decided to go to another town, but I decided to return and plan my next day since it was going to be a bit complicated, please see post on Coimbra.
We made plans to meet later and I headed to the train station. The time was almost 14 or 2 pm and the next train wasn’t till 15.48 or 3.48 pm. I walked back to the historic center and sat in a park to write my blogs and enjoy the warm sun.
On the train is appeared one guy was being trained for be a conductor and they ended up being in my car the majority of the time. It was interesting to watch….when I wasn’t sleeping. I slept most of the ride, I don’t know why I was so tired.
I met up with J that evening for drinks, we decided on more port wine and drank at this cool bar that still had an indoor smoking section, which intrigued me.
The food looked really good too, I believe the name was Bonaparte. I recommend it, the port was only 4 euros, which I thought was a good price.
On the way to the bar, I had to stop and buy a brush for my hair because the previous night it had broke while I was combing after the shower. I had a good laugh to myself- my hostelmates probably thought I was crazy.
Actually, if you read my Porto post, you know I bought a book. A French man arrived and was very adamant that he did not like the book and went so far as to turn it over so he didn’t have to see the cover. I found this quite strange and think he was just kidding around, but his reaction was a lot….
Be this as it may, I really enjoyed my time in Porto and area and I know I’ll be back :)