12 days of basketball – Porto – Shawn ja Topias

What luxury is this, having arrived to Porto at 13.00 yesterday – I am still here and only departing on Wednesday (not saying what time, as that ruins my point!!). So I decided to grab my ‘tourist camera’ (Leica Monochrome) and head out for a day time walk around Porto – and before those who know me go ‘WHAT!!! You go and walk in one of the most touristy places in Europe.. willingly??!!!’

I did not venture into the tourist center of Porto, although I did just walk randomly .. walk down this street.. turn left… next one right.. and after about two hours looked at the Google Maps and tried to figure out where I was.. there was that famous looking bridge… when I saw that, I knew I was getting too close to where the tourists are.. so time to turn around.

Nice walk – and of course ended up in some little local restaurant having a ‘Francesinha especial forno de lenha’ – tends to be a tradition of mine to have one when in Portugal.. and I can never remember whether it is Porto of Lisbon that is supposed to do the ‘authentic’ ones of these… but, it was nice enough, a bit heavier than I remembered .. so post walk afternoon was spent pretty much trying to recover from the combined effects of the long walk and heavy lunch!

Instead of another video of where I’ve walked – today I decided to post some still photos from the walk (and maybe just few from the game as well, to show that I was also covering basketball here).. maybe not the usual photos that you see in tourist brochures of Porto.. but for me, these were more authentic in many ways… but??

Then to the game – nice crowd at Porto and you could see that a lot of them are ‘Porto fans’ .. regardless of what sport it is – really love to see this kind of support over the boundaries of sports, big THUMBS UP!!! for that.

The away team kept a tight schedule so not much more time than to give a quick fist bump to Shawn and Topias before the game, and with the result going the wrong way from their point of view – no chance for a chat after the game either. Kind of ironic that the city where I spent the most time – I had the LEAST interaction with the players. It was bound to be like that I guess.

Game over by 21.45 – get directed out from the car exit.. so have to hop over four lane highway to get to the pedestrian path.. then back up the hill to the Media Center to return the photo bib and accreditation. My watch says that today I have gone 59 ‘floors’ up and 54 ‘floors’ down (the goal I have set is 12) – there are hills in Porto and I have been walking for about 5 hours in total!

Moments like this you appreciate that the hotel is across the road from the game venue – five minutes and I was in my room, and stopped on the way in reception to book a wake-up call for 6.30am .. and Taxi for 6.40am. Then decided that was in the mood for something warm to eat.. so ordered room service (rather than walk to the food court in the mall)…

Edit few photos – post on Twitter and Instagram .. pack the bag ready for tomorrow.. tomorrow will be interesting day, but will I have the time/energy to write about it??? I hope so!!