Porto

Porto has been a great city to take a break.  Lots of restaurants, good accomodations and beautiful churches and public spaces.  And hills.  There is about one square block of flat space in front of this cafe and after that it's up or down hill in every direction. I'm behind in my blog entries so I'll save the narrative and just show you the photos. The Plaza of Liberty is one of the great public spaces in Portugal.  The buildings on either side are almost but not  quite identical.  It's filled with banks, cafes and tourists.

The cathedral in Porto.  It has the same fortress-church look and Moorish decoration.

The cloister inside the cathedral.  Cloisters seem to me to be perhaps to be the most perfect combination of stone, light and space.  It is very hard to take a bad photo in a cloister.  This one is special because of the azulejo (tile) art.  I wonder if this distracted the monks from their meditations?

Another beautiful public space.  The stumpy trees look like sycamores.  They seem to tolerate the pruning that it takes to make such grotesquely shaped trees.

Porto from the south side of the river.  I had a very good stay here and even though I was walking up and down hills, I got the rest that I needed and I now declare myself ready to walk again, almost.  Tomorrow the train north to the border.