25 November 2006
Porto was everything you could hope for from a holiday except for the taxi drivers who kept taking us to the wrong places.
We had nice hot sunshine all day, every day. We shopped in abundance and everything was at least one third cheaper than in London. The hotel was only Euro 65 a night and very nice too. We ate a lot.... quasi peri chicken (because I didn't know how to ask for the peri), chourico, salsiccia, egg based dishes (for BB), filet mignon, saltimbocca, fish fresh from the river, cakes, lamb, pork in the syle of Minho (which means with tripe, blood and other bits and pieces), green tea icecream, chocolate mousse & lots, lots more. It was great! We also went on the new Metro which doesn't seem to go anywhere particularly useful but is very clean and shiny. J., who we went to visit, was very, very busy so we only managed to spend one afternoon, a lunch and a couple of dinners with her but it was good.
Back to the taxi drivers... The one from the airport took us to some hotel near the football stadium, which is definitely no where near where we wanted to go, after correcting my pronunciation of the name of the hotel several times on the way. Turns out it was a completely different hotel which he hadn't heard of and there was nothing wrong with my pronunciation.
Then, when we went to visit J at her home in Foz, the taxi driver didn't realise there were two roads with similar names and took us to the wrong one. To be fair to this taxi driver, he did stop a hapless lady in the street and asked her to check with us in English where we wanted to go, so he knew he had the right place. Didn't help though.
Been back now for two weeks and it's cold and rainy and London public transport sucks big time. Give me a misguided Portuguese taxi driver anyday - at least taxis there are cheap.
We had nice hot sunshine all day, every day. We shopped in abundance and everything was at least one third cheaper than in London. The hotel was only Euro 65 a night and very nice too. We ate a lot.... quasi peri chicken (because I didn't know how to ask for the peri), chourico, salsiccia, egg based dishes (for BB), filet mignon, saltimbocca, fish fresh from the river, cakes, lamb, pork in the syle of Minho (which means with tripe, blood and other bits and pieces), green tea icecream, chocolate mousse & lots, lots more. It was great! We also went on the new Metro which doesn't seem to go anywhere particularly useful but is very clean and shiny. J., who we went to visit, was very, very busy so we only managed to spend one afternoon, a lunch and a couple of dinners with her but it was good.
Back to the taxi drivers... The one from the airport took us to some hotel near the football stadium, which is definitely no where near where we wanted to go, after correcting my pronunciation of the name of the hotel several times on the way. Turns out it was a completely different hotel which he hadn't heard of and there was nothing wrong with my pronunciation.
Then, when we went to visit J at her home in Foz, the taxi driver didn't realise there were two roads with similar names and took us to the wrong one. To be fair to this taxi driver, he did stop a hapless lady in the street and asked her to check with us in English where we wanted to go, so he knew he had the right place. Didn't help though.
Been back now for two weeks and it's cold and rainy and London public transport sucks big time. Give me a misguided Portuguese taxi driver anyday - at least taxis there are cheap.
Labels: travel
# posted by gilamonster : 06:13
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you should write in to the SCMP and let that stupid Amanda Chapman woman know that taxi-drivers the world over take you the wrong places.
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