We spent a day taking the train to this city which is the farthest north we've been in Portugal. I believe it's about 40 minutes from Spanish border. It's a coastal town, historically an important port and ship building area and located on the Portugal Camino de Santiago route. It took us a little over an hour to get here and cost 8 euros each roundtrip.
We decided to head out of the pretty train station and walk through town to grab coffee first and I had a super yummy chocolate Broa de Mel which is a sugar cane honey flavored Portugese biscuit. It reminded me a little of German lebkucken. We passed a couple of women out with their fish carts which was something we hadn't seen before! We learned that they go to buy fish from the fishing boats each morning at 4 a.m. and then sell that day's catch from their carts. Yes, she's holding a fly swatter which she continually used! I was amazed since this seemed so problematic to be out with all this fish in the heat of the day, but this is the traditional way of doing it in this area. The person who told us this (and grew up in a fishing family in Portugal) said she believed it would be the last generation of women who would do this hard work.
Then we walked through an old fort and up on top to see some cool views of the waterfront and ship building equipment. Of course looming above the entire city from everywhere you walk is the incredible Santuário de Santa Luzia which would be our next destination.
Afterwards we had some really fresh Golden Sea Bream. This is the first country where I've been shown the fish, for approval and selection, before it's weighed/cooked. What's available is totally dependent on what's been caught that morning and what they still have left at the time of your order. They add nothing other than oil and salt when preparing it and it arrives with all of the bones still intact. In many places the waiter will ask if you want them to "prepare the fish". They then very skillfully, and quickly, remove the various bones and put it on your plate. Some people do this themselves. When it's not offered and we have to do it... it hasn't gone nearly as well.
Next, we decided to take the Elevador de Santa Luzia, which is longest funicular in the country, to see the views that Viana do Castelo is most known for. The ride took about 7 minutes and cost us each 3 euros for a roundtrip ticket.
The construction of the church at the top (also referred to as Sanctuary of the Sacred Heart of Jesus) began in 1904 and was completed in 1959 so it's not that old. The style and details are so pretty and in the chapel there was beautiful stain glass windows and painted ceilings.
The views from outside the chapel are really beautiful. Then we decided to pay an additional 2 euros to climb up inside. You start off with pretty typical stairs but once we entered the the Zimbório (the lantern tower) it became the most narrow steep staircase we've done to date. It even had a traffic light that indicated when you could go up or down because it would not work at all to have people coming the opposite direction!
It's hard to adequately describe and show how gorgeous the views are from up here. You can see from every direction and it's breathtaking.
After thoroughly enjoying that we wandered around town a bit more, had some yummy Brazilian food and hopped back on the train.
On one of the scheduled train stops we noticed we were sitting there for quite some time and we were told the train had broken down! I guess when it stopped to let passengers off something malfunctioned and it lost pressure and couldn't start back up. So they called another train and for an hour we hung outside, watched a rainbow and struck up a conversation with a girl from Brazil there studying and a Portuguese woman who was a museum archivist and lived in the Porto area. We had such a nice time as we waited for the new train that we continued visiting all the way home hugging as we parted. Meeting new people is really a wonderful part of traveling as you learn about their stories and find ways to connect.
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