It was time for us to separate from our tour group. Their itinerary was to go to Sintra where colorful 19th-century palaces, medieval castles, and lush mountain landscapes await them. The drive to Sintra was around three hours. We felt like we could achieve more if we stayed in Porto and do more exploration.

So, it was back to our mobile phones while trying to navigate a route from Vile Nova de Gaia to Porto Cathedral. We found two routes. GPSMyCity, an app that we had been using for the past year or so to navigate our self-guided walking tours, showed us a route that required 496 steps up the side of a hill! The other route was longer and convoluted but less steep. We put on our brave faces and headed up 496 steps to Porto Cathedral.

Alas, not even halfway up the stairs, we thought we didn’t make a very good decision! There were countless people walking up the stairs like it was nothing! A 300-lb guy, maybe less, walked past us! There was a landing about halfway up the stairs. It offered a wonderful panoramic view of the Duoro river. We rested a bit on that landing while absorbing the wonderful view.

We made it to the top of the stairs with a little bit of struggle. Whew! We really need to keep up with the walking exercise! We stood in the parvis, in front of the cathedral, and appreciated its massive architecture. There was a lot of learning about the history and the architecture of the cathedral. That came later as it was too much learn everything all at once. For now, it was to go inside the cathedral and say a prayer of thanks that we were given the opportunity to visit the magnificent cathedral.

Random photographs of our travels. Memories found and captured in a photograph.

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