Perhaps the rain was an omen. The weather on this cruise has been great but Wednesday we had overcast skies and rain, sometimes heavy. The ship docked at Leixeos, the port for Porto. Holland America ran a shuttle to Natosinhos, a town near the port and about half an hour drive from Porto. Holland told us that there would be a guide when we got off the shuttle to direct us to the metro, the hop on hop off, or bus route 500 that would take us into Porto.

I figured something was wrong, when the bus doors opened and wet, frustrated people trudged on, single minded to get on the bus, not allowing us time to get off. We soon found out why. There was no guide to meet us and the bus did not drop us off at the spot circled on our map

I had no idea where we were. The street names didn’t match the ones circled on the map. I used Google Maps to locate us. We looked to be about a mile from the metro. Google maps did not tell us where the hop on hop off or bus 500 stopped. So, we started wandering in the rain looking at bus stop signs for route 500. After about 25 minutes we gave up and took the shuttle back to the ship. We could have found our way to a metro but someone warned us that because of Monday’s power outage the trains were running irregularly. That was true on Tuesday but by Wednesday they were fine. Not knowing that we didn’t want to trek a mile just trek back a mile.

At the cruise terminal we went to the tourist lady and showed her where, on the map, we were actually let off. Then we called an Uber to take us to the city. We got there at about 12:40 PM, more than two hours later planned.

Our main goal was to visit the railway station, which was reported to have an amazing display of Azulejo or Portuguese tiles. (Click here for a blog post on Azulejo). The Uber could not take us exactly to the station because of road construction, buy dropped us off at the entrance to a temporary walkway behind the station that twisted like a rats’ maze, took us up and over the construction, and down again until we got to the station. This was the busy for just after midday with clusters of cell phone waving gawkers (me included, in the confusion I left my camera on the ship) staring up at the walls. The station was worth the trek, although the two biggest walls of tiles were behind plastic sheeting that muted their colors.

For some reason WordPress will not let me add the link to the paragraph above. Here it is.

In Lisbon we never got to taste the national pastry Pasteis de Nata because of the power outage. I figured a railway station must surely have them. It did, they were good. We sat in the railway cafe enjoying these flaky crusted custard tarts with a cappuccino.

We left the station by a different door but found ourselves in the same rats’ maze that took us behind the station. By the time we got to the front but across the street, we were thoroughly wet (ersatz Gore-Tex is water repellent not waterproof) and thoroughly turned around. I couldn’t work google maps on my Apple iPhone because the wet screen was too slippery. We popped into the Apple store (it only seems fair) to get directions.

We wanted to go to the Livaria Letto, which bills itself as the world’s most beautiful bookstore. This store has a unique business plan. By branding itself as the world’s most beautiful bookstore (there’s one in Buenos Aires that brands itself the same way) lots of people want to visit. Most of them are just tire kickers. So, the bookstore charges €10 a head to enter, but you get a voucher for €10 worth of purchases. I figured a bookstore, €20, we could easily spend that, even if there were no books in English. When we got there was a block long line of people waiting in the rain. And that was for a timed ticket that was too late for us to guarantee we could get back to the ship on time. We could purchase golden tickets for €50 each but $113 for two of us to go into a bookstore — come on. I took a picture from outside through the rain.

We ducked into the church across the street to get out of the rain so I could hail an Uber. Igerja das Carmelites/Igeria do Carmo, Mt. Carmel Church in both the Portuguese masculine and feminine genders, are two churches separated by a house one meter wide, one church for monks and one for nuns. The narrow house between was to keep them from whispering through the walls to each other. The side of the church is covered with tiles, covered in plastic, which dims their lister but preserves the art.

We got back to the ship just as my phone battery failed but not before I sent a comment to Holland on their feedback messenger explaining the bus and map mess up.

At the cabin a message from guest services waited me. They had gotten several complaints on their navigator app, but my comment (not a complaint, just the facts) was, apparently, the most cogent. “Ok what REALLY happened?” Had I marked where the bus left us off on a map? Did I have times when there was no one to greet the bus? Could I spend some time talking with them?

Happy to help. I started off telling them that I enjoyed the day despite the complications. Someone messed up, probably not HAL, but the contractor or the tourist office. They wanted to know so they could prevent it next time. There was another Holland ship in port that day, I asked them if Niew Statendam had had the same bus and map mix up. They didn’t know but were about to call.

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