Our cross over into Portugal is off to a smelly flier. First stop, just over the border between Salamanca, in Spain and Oporto, in Portugal, I (and one of our lady fellow travellers) stood in some dog shit. Portuguese dog shit smells as appalling as any other dog shit and when you walk it into a bus you’re in a world of trouble. It was like everyone took off their shoes at the same time. Fortunately that brief sensory assault didn’t spoil our introduction to Oporto which is breathtakingly spectacular.
Before I regale you with our Oporto exploits, more road stuff. Our very knowledgeable and enthusiastic tour director who is as good at cat herding as he is informative (and he’s a Spain based Aussie) has asked everyone for a song to contribute to a tour group compilation. He has uploaded it to Spotify and it is now on continuous loop in the bus. Fortunately there are 30 of us so it’s at least a couple of hours before your song comes round again.
The choices are quite instructive in respect of origin and disposition. We are quite an eclectic bunch ranging from the devout (Amazing Grace) to devil worship (a thoroughly unwarranted characterisation without foundation but the song is Black Magic Woman). A couple of Aussie selections are Cold Chisel and The Bee Gees. We have John Denver and Bob Seger, blues, soul, rock and roll, old and modern. A blessing is that no one has chosen a rap “song”. I’m going to digress here as I am want to do and as regular readers will understand. Do you notice how these rap talkers like to come over all tough and cool with their bitches and hoes (is that the gardening implement spelling or the abbreviated prostitute spelling, I’m never sure) and guns and gangsta personas. But their “musical” genre is called hip-hop which to me sounds like cuddly, bunny rabbit music. Tough guys! HA!
The CB chose Easy Living by Uriah Heep, a particularly appropriate choice on a range of levels. I chose my favourite song – Hotel California – but the 1994 version on the Hell Freezes Over album. This sounds extremely wankerish I know but there is a reason. That version’s intro and outro guitar solos have been done in a Spanish style. Very clever writing and very skilful playing.
One of life’s little pleasures PK (pre-kids), was the occasional glass of port. In fact that’s a significant understatement. On Friday nights during our mining town interludes, especially Zeehan in winter, we would polish off a bottle of port with friends. We had a saying that once opened, the cork could not be put back into the bottle.
So we visited the Sandeman port winery in Oporto and, amongst other things found out that once opened, a bottle should ideally be drunk inside two days. Vindication!!! And the best part about this visit was that many people on our tour don’t like port so when it came to the tasting I let it be known that I liked it so much, I bathed in it. So after tasting many more than my share I had the wobbly boots on when we left and I had to stay well away from the River Douro lest I join the idiots jumping into it off an impossibly high bridge.
During a couple of hours of free time the CB and I decided to go for a walk. Turn left out of the hotel, we were told, and that road will take you down to the river. If you’ve been to Oporto you will know this is the place for scenery, beer (and port) and food. So left we turned. There was a left and a slightly left of straight ahead and of course we took the wrong one and finished up in the same place as Harry Potter when he didn’t say “Diagon Alley” properly in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. You’ll have to look it up or watch the movie. We gradually worked our way back to civilisation past the loitering locals. I hummed Lou Reed’s “Walk on the Wildside” to placate them but seriously, never felt threatened as I know for a fact I can run much faster than the CB. Only joking. ONLY JOKING.