A tourist's work is never done

There is this obligation to eat something typical or local or unfamiliar when traveling. the mackerel with steamed potatoes and green sauce last night was a Highlight.(as was for a different reason the piri piri oil that came with Grette's rotisserie chicken.. see photo below) However I have savored a couple of less satisfying lunches: Yesterday, at a waterfront cafe looking out to the charming old city centre I  tried the menu del dia's beans and meats dish, in which the black beans were very hard and beanie and the various meets chewy and fatty and piggy. Today a version of the local fast food speciality "francesinha",which is a sausage, beef and sweet ham sandwich covered in melted cheese: in a beer and tomato sauce and Served with beer and chips. Which could have done with some chilli, dare I say. And yes, I'm not likely to run across this meal anywhere else. so I'm not complaining.

We also had chocolate and port at one one of the more famous port houses across the river yesterday too, but that was perhaps less a duty to the cause of tourism.

I'd like to put on the record the very obvious statement that it's tiring being a tourist. All that walking and buying and  eating. And the risks... I get so distressed when I don't find the most typical, or tasty or locally hip cafe or when we spend extra precious leg strength climbing the wrong hills, or fail to find an insight into local life or culture.

One of the highlights yesterday was to chance upon a puppet museum,  which showed a DVD of highlights of the Marionette Company of Porto's shows over the past thirty years  plus the puppets and designs from at least ten shows. There is a real power and art in making the inanimate live.  Plus it was great to come into contact with something that is not art and history through the Church.

The puppet company is still going, but struggling now with a 62% cut in public funding. Austerity and all that. This year's show is a re-staging of their fairy recent contemporary take on Cinderella. There are many people who could do with a few fairy tales right now one would think.  Or is that what has been going on?

Today our highlight was a nice quiet time at the beach. Doing, in fact, what locals might do. We've moved from cold spring to war spring, and while Grette and I paddled in the cold Atlantic and  protected ourselves from sunburn, there are quite a few people here, as in Bondi, very committed to the tan.

And a Brazilian contemporary jazz concert tonight.