Vila Real again!

Last saturday I went back to Vila Real for 4 days (Carnival), a small town not very far from Porto (Portugal), that I talked about in the previous post. The trip went smooth because I already knew my way around. This is a summary of the trip for any other interested visitor to Vila Real:

I travelled Santander ->Madrid -> Porto with Ryanair (surprisingly the timetable was just perfect to do the transfer at Madrid). Then in Porto's Airport I took the metro (line E purple) to Bolhão (the ticket you have to buy is the z4 - 1,95 Eur). From Bolhão I walked a little bit until Rodonorte bus station where i catched the bus to Vila Real (7,50 Eur).

That night Maria prepared a delicious Polish Beetroot soup that recalled me of my trip to the Bieszczady. Instead of Pierogi she used an alternative pasta with meet inside.

Vila Real is surrounded by mountains (with a lot of Windmills on the top!) so we decided to go for a hiking trip. We didn't reach the top because we didn't bring enough water but we could see that the mountain was quite dirty and there was rubbish everywhere. There was also an awful smell due to the mountain motorbikes.

On monday we had lunch in the commercial centre Dolce Vita. There are several fast food restaurants there and we went to one that served very nice traditional soups! At night we had a carnival dinner with erasmus students in Vila Real. The dinner had two typical dishes (Bacalao and pork) but it wasn't very good quality. I was a bit pissed off that they put alcoholic drinks for everybody (sangria and beer) so I had to ask for a bottle of water (yeah, the only one :D). To compensate, the next day we went to a nice restaurant where we had a delicious dish made of pork (porco) and wonderful potatoes that Maria enjoyed a lot. For dinner, Maria cooked a very tasty dish made of beans, rice and chicken (I don't know if it has a name or if it is typical of Poland).

Of course, we also tasted some nice portuguese cakes and pastry. For example, there were some round and small cakes with pudding inside and burnt on the top that were very typical. As for coffee Maria usually asked for a Galao. A Galao is made with espresso coffee. A little bit of it is put in tall glass mug or tall glass and then hot milk is added.

The last day we chilled out in Vila Real squares and I made a drawing of Maria and her flatmates (Iva and Maruska from Czech republic and Magda and Paulina from Poland).