Sep 2 - times change

It's interesting how times change with technology.

Four years ago, on PBP, many people were sleeping by the side of the road.  This time just as many, or more, were stopped but there were many who were checking their smartphones.

Four years ago we drank lots of espresso / cappuccino, made by attendants at breakfast, lunch and dinner; this time at breakfast, it's make-your-own, with Nespresso machines everywhere, even in the rooms.  The restaurants still have the big machines but the Nespresso machines do a surprisingly good job.

There are two types of Nespresso machines -- one that has the small cups like Keurig and one that has bulging wafer-like capsules.  We went into a Nespresso machine in, I think, Malaga and they had tons of different coffees, all the cup style.

It's very tempting but there are two things that hold me back - first, that I'd drink too much coffee, too easy to make another coffee -- I'm having 5-6 cappuccinos at breakfast on this trip and most of those have two shots of espresso.  I'm also drinking coffee during the day, but I'm paying for that at restaurants / bars / coffee shops.  The second reason is cost.  About the lowest price that I can see for Nespresso is about 75 Cents USD per cup.  That would certainly add up.

If I found a way of using my own coffee in the cups (that's what Doris Guymon does), I'd still be consuming a lot of coffee but it would be cheaper ... we'd have to do a lot more roasting !  At the cottage, I've been occasionally having an espresso, using my own machine, but that takes a few seconds more than using the Nespresso so that slows me down.

Back to technology -- what will we find four years from now ?  Who knows.

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We took a "deviation" in our route north to Porto, stopping at Ferrel, which is a little spit of land pointing out into the Atlantic.  It turned out to be an interesting spot, a surfers paradise (for those who cannot get to places like Hawaii), a couple of large rental shops, lots of wetsuits hanging out to dry, a couple of bars, lots of condos ... and lots of younger people !   A couple of huge crescent shaped beaches accommodated large numbers of people.  No doubt the water was cold.  This is the Atlantic, after all. 

We had coffee in a bar and continued our journey, getting onto the A roads this time.  It was as far from Ferrel to Porto as it was from Lisbon, but that was still only 2.5 hours.  We got to Porto around 3:30; the Garmin took us straight to our hotel ... almost ... except that our hotel was on a pedestrian-only street ... been there done that !  We circled the block a couple of times and then pulled into a municipal parking lot, up, up, up to level six (small levels), and rolled our suitcases to the hotel.  It turned out that we were parked in the correct place (like Lisbon), only this one was 6 Euros per day vs Lisbon at 15.  Great !

After catching up with email, we wandered around a little; the pedestrian area is much smaller here than Lisbon, eventually ending up at the Majestic Cafe -- what a find ! -- ordered a bottle of Churchill BIG red wine, a shared appetizer and then, much to our surprise, what could be the best meal that we've had on this trip, although there have been many good meals.  My duck cooked in Port was simply amazing; Sandy's steak done rare.

Our day done, we rested.  Oh yes, before we did anything, on check-in at the hotel the desk man arranged a wine tour for us.  We had choices among wine-only (our preference) and wine and towns.  We've had enough of towns.  The wine-only tour that we wanted was full but he knew a guy (surprise ?) who would do a custom tour.  Great !  Today we head to the Douro valley to sample all sorts of wine and I don't have to drive the car, which is the best way to hit wineries (port-eries ?).

Onward !