Azulejos

Azulejos are the tiles which decorate many structures around Portugal, including on and in dozens of buildings in Porto. Some examples are shown below. They help brighten up this otherwise grey granite-heavy city.

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While there are plenty of majestic buildings in Porto, many structures are worn down and look as if they are from a much poorer place. At the same time, they are often charming in their own willy-nilly way, especially when painted various colors.

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One of the grander places is a McDonald’s!

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Bonus side notes:

• I’ve read in multiple places that Portuguese would rather you speak English to them than to try to communicate in Spanish, despite the close similarity. And everyone I’ve encountered so far speaks English very well anyway.
• On flying into Lisbon from Zagreb, we had what was my first aborted landing. The wheels were just about to touch the ground when the pilot gunned the engines and lifted back off and promptly retracted the landing gear. The pilot said that wind shear made it unsafe, so we took about 15 more minutes to circle back around and successfully land on a second try.
• On check-in at the Lisbon airport for my flight to Porto with TAP Portugal, not only was check-in self-service, but even baggage dropoff was too! You put your own luggage sticker on, and placed it on a belt, where the bag was weighed and the tag scanned. Fancy!
• I’ve read that tour guides all over the world will often make up stories, because they don’t actually know the true story, or because their version is more interesting than reality, or because they just enjoying fooling unsuspecting tourists. Today, I overheard a couple of American ladies ask their tour guide who a particular statue was of. I had just read in Rick Steves’ Portugal book that the guy was a fire brigade chief who helped orchestrate saving much of the city from a huge fire in the 1800s. The tour guide told the ladies that he was a local baker.

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Today’s dad joke: What kind of mushrooms does Portugal’s second-largest city offer?

Portobello!

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Today’s limerick:

Portuguese love to decorate with tiles
Porto has these blue-painted squares for miles
This is a good way
To brighten the gray 
Look at the tourists, you'll see they're all smiles. 

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Today’s travel quote:

A traveler without observation is a bird without wings.

Moslih Eddin Saadi