Leaving for Barcelona - Bye Porto and our friends!

 This morning was a sad one as we had to say goodbye to everyone on the boat. We knew we would be seeing our Melbourne friends again (we are organising something next year) but actually it was members of the crew which were the sad ones to part with.

We had a lovley restuarant waiter called Miguel who was from Porto. He was in the mid to late 20's and had such a fun sense of humour. We tried to get the same table each time for breakfast, lunch and dinnerfor our 6 as it was round and easy to talk across. He was always our waiter and loved having us because we were fun and had jokes with him. We got him talking about his life, he works 3 trip continuously (30 days) and then has 10 days off. He gets 2 hour breaks between the meals to either go into town (if in Porto) or rest. He starts at 6.am and finishes around 9,30pm so long days but always with a smile and offer to go beyond the call of duty (like to get another starter because it was yummy but not much of it!) towards the end we 6 were all upstairs on the top deck (after the classical concert) so about 10pm in Porto and lovely warm evening, and Miguel comes along with some other waiters going into town for dinner. One of them was this tall, classy waiter lady who waited for him while he talked to us. Apparently she was his girfriend and on the same shifts on the boat! He had kept that one quiet. 

Dave and I spent the morning wandering around the waterfront. We tried to get into this quirky art gallery which had Monet, Klimt and Van Gogh but only opened in the afternoon (bummer)and  we had to wai until our shuttle taxi to the airport for Barcelona. This shuttle was part of the package. It was weird because while we were waiting people from the next cruise were coming on board, so we felt like the oldies who knew everything about the boat!

Finally we loved Porto as a city - it was touristy and would get worse in the heat and their summer holidays but at this time of year delightful. We had no problem when asking for help and everyone spoke enough English to get by. Clean city with no rubbish.