Eina, Porto in a Storm!

No to one job…

Its been a comparitively active month here in inertia land. Firstly an ex-colleague contacted me about a temporary job in insurance. I wasn’t keen but a three month contract might have been useful. As it happened they titted around for two weeks then wanted an immediate start whereas I had the best part of a week in Naples booked and I wasn’t keen to change those plans.

Then two come along at once…

Then I had a hot and hectic couple of days in Naples and came back resigned to do some job hunting. As it happens I came back to some feedback on two tentative letters I had sent off before going to Italy. I interviewed both, had a day out with a driver at one of the outfits which I liked and found myself in the glorious position of being offered two jobs. I don’t have a sterling history of making good choices in this situation – see my last job at Lloyd’s.

Given that most things were equal I went for the job that looked somewhat easier but most importantly is located only a short distance away. 10 minutes drive if the traffic isn’t too bad and set about booking myself one last shot at enjoying freedom.

Then a wee trip

I sat down for about an hour going through various places and seeing which would get me a cheap flight in the time available and hit on Porto in Portugal. I didn’t know much about it apart from that it is where Port wine comes from. I am now a little wiser and know also that it is shabby, smells of cat piss and the food is bloody awful.

It wasn’t that bad really but somehow it just didn’t gel for some reason that I can’t be sure of. Sometimes it is just mood. Ive read enough travel literature to know that some writers slag off a place that I really quite like so I will give Porto the benefit of the doubt because I had a rotten journey. I had to ride to Stansted (Britains most inaccessible airport) at 3.30am and it was absolutely freezing. Five in the morning saw yours truly changing out of my biker gear in the airport carpark, in the dark, with frozen fingers and locking up all the gear on the bike.  And the weather was awful on the second day though the rain did clear up by lunchtime.

But for a town that demanded, and received World heritage status it is pretty shabby – though looking at the metro it has had some serious money spent on it (Doh! That will be why they wanted the Heritage Status! He realises as he writes). It really does stink of piss – there seem to be lots of cats lurking about and the food was pretty poor.

I struck gold with my hotel and the lad behind the desk was very helpful generally. On my first evening I asked for advice on the trendy areas and the best local specialities; I thought Portugal would have a keen and vibrant food scene like Italy or Spain. He recommended something called a Franchini which sounded like a steak a gratin. The harbourfront area he recommended was rather quiet, admittedly it was quite early, though there were not that many restaurants and they were grabbing rather proactively at the little passing trade. There were more derelicts than tourists and always this horrible damp pissy smell.

None of the restaurants was serving the fabled Franchini. I ended up having a very pleasant meal in a very nice little family restaurant with a small bottle of Douro wine as I overlooked the Douro river but at the end of the day it was only a bog standard steak with an egg and chips. It was not until lunch the next day at the trendy riverside development on the other side of the river that I finally found the famed local delicacy.

A franchine turns out to be a toasted sandwich containing steak, sausage and ham, covered in cheese and then bathed in gravy and served with chips. It was utterly disgusting. Like a high street burger it was just a mess of flavours and goo. I imagine it would go down well with people who like stuffed crust pizza but if this is what the locals recommend to tourists then the rest of the food must be pretty dire, or their opinion of the tourists is poor. Maybe if I were French I would have been sent somewhere else and recommended grilled sardines and some delicacy containing salt cod and tripe (yup plenty of that in the shops).

Anyway Porto is quite striking and I wish I had had more time and had been a bit better organised as it much nicer than I have probably led you to believe. I think that simply coming three weeks after Naples it was just rather colourless in comparison.

and then back to work

Anyway the fun is over. I start the new job tomorrow. I am sort of looking forward to it…I don’t have to be up at dawn’s crack and it will be good to get back on track. The weather is fouling up rapidly so I might as well be earning pennies and planning ventures new. I’ve got lots of ideas for next year but in the meantime it looks like I may go to either Budapest or Athens in early December.

ps the fabulously witty title of this post will be meaningless to anyone unfamiliar with South African slang.

Seen Naples, didn’t die

I heard a lot about Naples but I am starting to realise that most travel literature talks rubbish.  I particularly remember Bill Bryson hating the place.  The general view is that it is noisy dirty and crime ridden with depressing levels of poverty.

 I really liked it.  I wish I’d booked more time.  It was actually a cheap flight to Rome that I had, and I took the train.  Train was actually quite pricey and I had to stay in Rome for the last night in order to catch my flight and that was a total rip off.   It would have been much better to get a pricier flight direct to Naples.

Naples is indeed very littered.  The whole place looks like  a market at the end of the day.  Everyone is selling – from Africans selling D&G belts and handbags from sheets on the pavement, old boys selling junk from trestles, through to street stalls, market stalls, tiny shops selling only a handfull of things all the way up to proper shops. 

The traffic is bad, and the constant hooting is irritating.  The one thing I disliked was the amount of dog shit on the pavements – and Neopolitans must be pretty stupid about it cos it was usually smeared.

But that apart it’s a buzzing vibrant place.   It’s dirty noisy and busy but that’s because it is a real city with real people living and working there.  London by contrast is just a show put on for tourists.  No-one can afford to live there and there is very little local industry.  The local cafes are nearly all gone and we have Starbucks in their place.

I had a day and a half wandering about the streets and photographing the buildings and another day to visit Herculaneum and Vesuvius.  The view from the hill should have been good but it was very hot and hazy. 

I am quite pleased with some of the pictures and you can see more here.