Viana do Castelo

After a couple of hours drive, we eventually take the IC1 / A 28 from Porto and head North, our destination is Viana do Castelo in the North of Portugal? The 75-kilometre drive takes around 50 minutes and was relatively unhindered. As we approach the Lima River, a beautiful slow running expanse of water that glistens in the sunlight, we marvel at the islands and the Ínsuas do Lima, the beautiful National Park. We now exit the motorway and head towards Viana Do Castelo, passing the Parque de Cidade and the Parque de Viana Do Castelo on our left. As we hit the roundabout, the first thing we see is a large Mcdonalds, we both smirk at each other. We’re not here for burgers, just seafood and our overnight trip will consist of three meals at three different restaurants that we'd recently researched.

We find a spot to park near the Hospital and head for the Elevador de Santa Luiza, a funicular railway that rises 160 metres in six to seven minutes and is the longest in Portugal. We purchase 2 roundtrip tickets at a cost of three euros each and join the queue. We're not really here for the ride, just the church and the view, and what a view it is of Viana do Castelo and the beach.

The church is also nice and worth a look if you like churches, but as our stomachs began to rumble thoughts turn to our real goal, lunch, and our first seafood experience of Viana do Castelo. We make our way back down the railway, chugging along and arrive at the bottom and head for the harbour. We'd made our reservation at the Tasquinha da Linda. A quaint little restaurant with a large glazed frontage that looks out over the boats. It has great reviews and was the first on our list.

We arrived just after noon and were given a warm, friendly greeting. Olives and bread were offered and expertly served with a bottle of Vinho Verde named Muros de Melgaço. We perused the menu and opted for the seafood platter. Wow were we surprised! What an extravagance.

The shellfish was some of the freshest we'd ever had and the crab was amazing. It was almost too much and we decided that we would skip the dessert and head for the hotel to check-in.

We'd chosen the Pousada Hotel which was just around the corner from the church we'd visited earlier, however, this time we took the car. We wound slowly up the huge hill and finally reach our destination. I have to say it's a beautiful hotel with the same fantastic far-reaching views, we'd enjoyed earlier.

We ordered drinks on the balcony and then took a nap to sleep off the wine and lunch from earlier. When we came around we had a walk around the hotel and grounds and pondered the evening at the restaurant O Pescador. The chatty hotel receptionist confirmed it was one of the best places to eat seafood, as she busied herself ordering us a taxi for 7:30 p.m. We arrived and were warmly greeted and seated in what was already a fairly bustling place, one crammed with locals all eating fish stew. We opted for a starter of bolinhos de bacalhau with a bottle of monte Velho white wine and for the main, we decided on the robalo a Pescador for two. Sea bass that was a grilled to perfection and as white as could be, all filled with a cream of crab stuffing. Ridiculously good fish and the potatoes it came with were off the chart. The place was buzzing and by 10.30 p.m. we were still there in its sea-theme interior. We finished off with a coffee and the waitress booked us a cab back to the hotel. What an amazing night, one we'll never forget.

The next morning we awoke to rain, what a downer! The weather report had said it would be sunny. We took a leisurely breakfast waiting for the sun to come out and once it had we took a swim in the large pool. At 11.30 a.m. we checked out and made our way down the hill in the car and headed for our last destination, the restaurant Taberna do Valentim. This restaurant has to have the worst web site in the history of restaurant websites; however, the food was another matter entirely.

Again near the harbour is this quaint traditional Portuguese restaurant, it's nothing fancy but the food, oh boy is it good. Try the Monkfish strew with a nice bottle of Vinho Verde. We had Turbot and octopus and it was fresh that day. It was so good, and pretty much better than anything else we'd had thus far on our trip to Viana.

And that was it, time to go home.

So there you have it, a brief overnight in Viana do Castelo. We can't tell you much more about the place as we didn't have a lot of time to explore, however, if it's fish you're after you could do far worse than eat at the three restaurants we dined at. A thoroughly enjoyable foodie trip that was squeezed in between work.

Thank you Viana do Castelo.