travel to Porto

On the way to Porto for a week's holiday, we drove through a pine forest a man planted forest the way each
stood at a respectful distance from each other
A year later in high summer, the forest took fire and
when flames met on the road, cars were trapped and many people, and families, died in the horrific hell-fire.
Our hotel was situated at a height, we had asked for a downtown hotel, my wife said it was my fault since I had tried to speak Portuguese- not far from a disused water tower, it's gated surrounding full of rats where every night hideous screams were heard in the ongoing war of rodents fighting cats
we decided to walk into the center, but with her hips and my feet, we soon tired and hailed a taxi.
Porto, the old part, is a marvel with shops from a time long passed yet still open for business and lovely old churches, not to forget the railway station, its waiting hall a work of art in its own right.
Back at the hotel, for a change of dress and rest, there was a commotion outside a dead obscenely rat that was to be removed by the unwilling staff at the hotel
in the evening we dined at a posh restaurant we will normally not visit because it is too expensive, but the food was superb as was the wine, which I drank too much of and in a festive mood offered to sing until my
wife explained in Porto they are not into Fado!
The next day, we went to where tourists go to bars
along the river, it was packed, I hated it and wanted to
go home but endured to me wife was tired too and
we took a taxi to our hotel.
The next day she met a friend she had not seen since she left Congo and the two women had much to catch up on
and I was free to read the papers