Nathan's favourite spot - With a Cup of Port in hand - Salute to Porto

One of Nathan's favourite spots - Porto in northern Portugal has proved to be a very colourful city (population 200,000 approx). At this moment, Joye and I have a glass of port in hand... acknowledging Porto as the home of port wine. The English are to blame for port! They added brandy to Porto's wine to stop it going sour. Perhaps they should have thought ahead a bit more and also added something to stop it going so sweet. Anyway, Porto is fantastic. I asked Patricia, our guide in Lisbon for a phrase that summarised Portugal. I was looking for a phrase in the category of "creepy" or "mysterious". She said she could go one better and provided a one word summary of Portugal. She said, "Portugal is 'luminosity'". She said the light in Portugal makes Greece look like a shadow. It was not until we came to Porto that I understood how accurate her summary was. Today we had scattered cloud... yet looking up on the old city from the river, the senses are overwhelmed with the colour of deep red roof tiles and sand rendered walls. The place glows! Porto is not on the Mediterranean... but it should be. The light, sounds and flavours capture what I think is the essence of 'Mediterranean '.

Bad news for you my friend... we have a new 'best' friend. Her name is 'Peggy' and she is very good at navigation... in fact she is the Garvan GPS system. She has made what would otherwise be an impossible task, into a relatively relaxed drive through the countryside. Our Porto hotel is right in the middle of the old city. The streets are narrow and not a straight line in site. That is how the Moors designed their cities so that they were easier to defend. Without Peggy we had no chance of finding our hotel. So many times Peggy has saved the day... if we make a mistake, she just says 'Recalculating'.... . so dear old friend... you will just have to accommodate a step down the ladder. (Please note - this does not apply to relatives.)