Day 4 - Pickapau anyone?

The day started out right - with just about the thickest bestest hot chocolate ever.  It's a thing and it's a very good thing.

We've been fancying one of these since we saw them on the first day and after our hot chocolate we were craving some sugar so we went to fetch one for breakfast.  We were hoping it was a a 6 inch hunk of cream between flaky pastry but the cream had a lot of gelatin in it so we only ended up eating about half.  

We picked up our rental car with no problem and drove north to the seaside town of Vila do Conde.  It's really beautiful and much more of what I would have thought a beach town here would be like.  We stopped for a short walk and to look at a fort which is now an event space.  Once again, no one was in the water but for some surfers in wet suits.  The sea was so rough I really wanted to get in.  

We happened to pass a wedding.  It was one of 3 we saw today.

Our first real stop was in the town of Braga where we were going to see a monastery just outside of town. In the town however there is a Gothic cathedral. which was really something.  Here is the crypt.

Apparently they revere Florence Foster Jenkins who apparently revered baby heads.

Here I include your daily dose of baby heads.

I've seen a lot of churches in my life but true gothic cathedrals are still amazing to me.  This one in Guimaraes is very well taken care of.

Though it was 96 degrees out, we found a shady spot to have a local "delicacy".  Here, meat and ham and cheese melted in a puff pastry.  Rebecca had the same thing but without the ham and cheese.  Beer for me and vinho verde for her.  

The reason to go to Braga in the first place was to go to a nearby monastery.  The views from here were incredible.  The church has a set of 300 + stairs with 17 landings.  As it was in the upper 90s, you can imagine we gave the steps a miss.

Here is the chapel itself.

In the chapel there seemed to be a wedding conveyor belt.  This is the first one we saw.

The park to the left of the chapel was quite beautiful.

Neither Rebecca nor I have ever seen an altar quite like this. It's like Jesus meets the cyclorama.

After we sweatily left the monastery we got temporarily lost and ran into this. It's hard to explain just how dramatic a setting this all was. The Catholic church has always had a hell of a real estate agent.

After a small adventure finding our hotel in Guimaraes we finally checked in and freshened up and headed out to find some dinner.  We tried one restaurant that was fairly completely empty but were told it was booked.  Being a Saturday, the town seemed like it was completely uninhabited.  We looked a few restaurants but there didn't seem to be anyone eating and we became a bit intimidated or worried that the restaurants were bad.  Eventually we walked by a bar which was filled with locals laughing and yelling.  There was an empty table so we grabbed it.  This is a round of traditional Madeira garlic bread.  

We also chose an order of "flaming sausage".  We had seen a dish a couple of days previous which was called "chef's sausage."  I pray to God this wasn't his!

We didn't know exactly what to do with it but eventually the flame went out.  It was delicious.  

This cabbage soup was my first meal mistake.  Just say no.

The specialty of the house was called pickapau.  It's hard to say what it was - steak, wienies, chorizo, pickled carrots and cauliflower in a ketchupy bbq sauce.  Not bad actually.

This guy walked by.

As it was 95 degrees outside and the resto was unairconditioned, the wine cooler provided some delicious relief.

Guimaraes wasn't supposed to have presented any interest really but it was one of our favorite towns.  Here is a typical street but the whole town looks like this.  It seems like you could be in the 18th century.

Here is the entrance to our hotel - Hotel Toural.  The place was a bit dated but it was clean and airconditioned and did the job in spades.