While in London for the week with work, I had the weekend to fill and was keen to try and get somewhere new. After some research online I settled on Porto as I could get there on a direct flight from Galway, and I’d heard good things about the city as a weekend destination.
Adding in the travel time and finding my hotel in town, I was left with less than two full days to enjoy the many delights around the city. And enjoy them I did! Apart from wandering around the steep cobbled streets around the old city down to the river, the highlight was definitely the port I drank. I managed to squeeze in five cellar tours on the far side of the river, and visited another three to do some tasting.
Whenever I fly back from Europe to San Francisco I always keep an eye out the window midway through the flight for views over the wilds of places like Iceland or the far north of Canada. On one overnight flight in the middle of winter I once had spectacular views of the aurora swirling overhead while we cruised at 35,000 feet.
On this United Airlines flight from LHR to SFO I raised the window shades just as we flew over some ice floes, heralding our arrival on to the east coast of Greenland. For the following half an hour I stuck glued to window watching the most other-worldly landscape pass below our plane. The views were spectacular, and really whet my appetite to plan some remote polar adventure sometime in the near future. 
The blog has suffered from even more neglect over the past year or two, but I’m determined to start being more diligent! For the time being I’ll capture the travels I’ve done from the last post until now, so at least I have it documented:
- Australia: Business trip to the Gold Coast and Melbourne to see the fam
- Cuba: Trip with Milan to Havana, Pinar del Rio, Cayo Levisa
- Iceland: Reykjavik, Snaefells road trip, Jökulsarlon, Golden Circle tour, Blue Lagoon
- Ireland: Dublin, County Wicklow, Glendalough, Eoin & Sally’s wedding in Tinahely/Aughrim
- Netherlands: A couple more business trips to Amsterdam
- Norway: Winter visit to Oslo to see my sister, Christmas 2013 with the family in Oslo, skiing and ice climbing in Beitostølen, Tromsø for Aurora Borealis and a half-marathon
- Peru: Cusco, Ausangate trek & climbs with Sky High Expeditions, Machu Picchu, Mt Machu Picchu hike
- UK: London over several visits for work, Skipton (Yorkshire), Edinburgh
- US: SF Bay Area, couple of weekend trips to Yosemite NP, SXSW @ Austin TX, Hawaiian island of Kauai for Thanksgiving 2013, Houston TX to see my sister, Big Sur/Monterey
Now I just need to work out what service to use to get my photos in the cloud – Flickr, Picasa, iPhoto…?