The Wrong Train, The Best Result

When you begin it all seems so simple, you have bought a ticket and you ask the train station staff, “Where do you catch the train down the coast?”  The representative of CP (the Portuguese rail system) tells you that although you bought the ticket there at the fancier than heaven Sao Bento station you must leave from a different station.  He tells you to get on the next train south and change two stations down the line. 

 

With trust you follow his direction.  Sure enough, there is a train that has the name of the end point of the local you want, but it is coming in six minutes early.  You are unsure so you waiver for a second and then jump on.  The train’s door closes, and the cars picks up speed. 

 

Very quickly you discover something is amiss.  You have downloaded the stops for the train you want, and this train is blowing right past them.  Zoom, zip there is a station you should have stopped at and the trains just flies by.  You pull up the app on your phone and you see the train is going toward a seaside town about 10 miles south of where you want to be. 

 

Hells bells, you better get off at that next stop and figure out when the next local coming north will swing by.  (By this point you figured it out.  You wanted a local.  The train person gave you directions to get on the regional line which makes fewer stops.)  When the train pulls into Espinho you get off.

 

Unlike the 8 days you spent in Lisboa and Coimbra, all at 90 F or hotter, Porto the city you came from today has been hovering about 68-70 F.  The whole coast is fogged in with a grey clammy mist.  As you get off the train you walk down the seaside promenade.  You look left and see nothing.  (This is funny because there is a big casino there, but the fog has obscured it).  Then you look right, and you see some fishing boats pulled up on the beach.  There are nets drying 

 

Small boats on the sand, this is the stuff you have been looking for. 

 

Grab out the iPhone and start snapping the photos.  Your wife goes for the arty shots.  She is really good at composition, hell, she took a course in it once.  You just shoot whatever trying to get a contrast of colors. After about fifteen minutes of this you suggest walking through the town. 

 

You are barely two blocks away from the beach and you start to smell it.  These is the distinct odor of seafood grilling.  You start to salivate.  It is a smell from your youth spent in the tidewater of the eastern U.S.  The smell grows stronger and then you turn a corner and see a gentleman over some coals turning an octopus, some sardines and some filleted white fish on the grill.  The smell is sooooo inviting, so alluring. 

 

The place appears to be an old house converted into a restaurant.  The line is short, so you queue up.  Pretty quickly you get seated and with a smattering back and forth of broken English/broken Portuguese your order a ½ liter of wine, a small beer, some octopus, a seafood stew and a white fish of some unknown variety. 

 

And the seafood stew is delightful.  It tastes light, warm and golden and there are mussels in it and shredded fish too. The wine is delicious, and the beer is cold.  And then the octopus so delicate with the texture of a scallop is served.  And the white fish (sorry I can’t tell you what kind) is flaky and mild.  The smells, the textures, the experience is just a serendipitous delight.

 

Sometimes you just must take a wrong train to find the right place.