Porto – the Lonely Planet called it “gritty” 3 times

After two days there, I really started to enjoy Porto. It’s not the usual touristy spot – we hardly heard any English spoken there (if any). I really started to get the feel of a “real” Portuguese city, and felt like a “traveler” finding my feet, way off the beaten path. Once we found our sense of direction, I got comfortable exploring this very foreign-feeling place.

So what about our first day there? To be honest, at first I thought we had made a huge mistake going there at all. A substantial percentage (a quarter?) of the buildings we walked past were derelict, with broken windows or crumbling walls. We were ripped off at dining establishments twice(!) in the first day (and somehow they adamantly defend themselves after charging us different prices than the posted prices). To top it off, a darkly overcast sky always makes the picture seem more dire than it actually is. Overall, one has the sense of a once-grand city that has fallen into relative poverty.

(First impression – may not look bad, but this view avoided the derelict buildings.)

Even the only laundromat near the city center was in some creepy tunnel along with public facilities:

But like I said, I grew to like (love?) the place (sidenote - when thief/restaurant person #3 tried to charge us a higher-than-posted price, we had learned – we simply walked out and went to another place – one advantage of paying first at a counter - since we hadn’t gotten the food or eaten yet).

But I digress. I grew to like Porto and its treasures – In the 18^th & 19^th centuries, it was a thriving center, with port wine production and a banking boom. Prior to that, it was great medieval center with navigation expertise, and way prior to that, of course, a Roman city.

The Sun came out…

The city is in a gorgeous natural setting: it is situated along the Douro River, on hills. The Atlantic coast is just a few miles away.

When the sun shines on the buildings on the hills, it’s a very unique view to take in.

The buildings lining the river (and the hills behind) are almost idyllic.

And on the other side of the river, is the port wine district – but I’ll get back to that in a few minutes.

The City center:

In the city center, there several notable historic buildings:

The Cathedral:

The Porto cathedral was built from 1110 to about 1220, and underwent some Baroque changes in the 17^th & 18^th Centuries. It’s another staggeringly enormous cathedral – if you zoom in, you can see people near the door and front steps (not the people close-up in the foreground).

Casa-Museo Guerra Junqueiro

This is a house built in the 18^th Century, that houses a vast collection of art & artifacts that were donated by the heirs of the poet Guerra Junqueiro.

Included in the collection was some fine 17^th-Century silver,

And glazed dishware from the 15^th Century.

The Stock Exchange:

The stock exchange was built in 1841 to give the city economic credibility and to impress European investors. So, the interior looks a little bit like a palace. (No pictures are allowed, so the interior picture - which is of the show-stopping Arabic Hall - is from a website).

Igreja and Torre dos Clerigos

This church and tower (separate buildings) were built in 1763. We climbed the tower, the highest in Portugal, up 225 winding steps.

The alterpiece had carving that was characteristic to other churches that we went into in Porto:

So… as we found out in our travels, Portugal doesn’t seem to have much of a safety code. As a prime example, this picture is taken at the top of the country’s highest tower… And a child (or just about anyone) could fall right through the posts.

But the views are sure beautiful – just don’t slip.

The Riverfront – city side

Next to the river, these archways were built as storehouses for the goods (port wine) being traded.

Here’s a picture from the river:

And the area under the arches opens up to restaurants and homes:

The riverfront is one of the prettiest places in the city…

So one night we had dinner there – and enjoyed some views to the other side of the river, the Port Wine side.

Livraria Lello

Here’s another treasure – an Art Nouveau bookstore called Livraria Lello.

The exterior:

The interior, first floor:

Old buildings and narrow streets with stairs:

This building we stumbled upon is pretty cool – called the Torre (tower) da Rua de Baixo, it’s one of the oldest surviving buildings in the city – it’s from the 13^th Century.

Other streets…

This one with a view of a medieval wall in the background:

Over to the “other side” of the river – with port wine cellars!

We walked over the Pont Luis I Bridge (the higher level) to get to the other side of the river. If the structure looks vaguely familiar, it may be because it was built by none other than Gustave Eiffel.

First stop, Taylors, established 1692 (first a shipping company, and entered the port wine business about a century later). It’s a small, family-run company and the tour group was really small. We waited for the tour to begin in this crazy-looking tasting room:

The tour was great, the casks are huge.

The next stop was Croft, a much bigger cellar with a much bigger group – but the property and grounds were really old.

One thing I haven’t mentioned yet is that Porto has really distinctive way of using tiles on both the interior and exterior walls of the buildings. Most of the churches have some tile-work on the outside, as well as ordinary houses:

The coast

Where there is coastline, we will go to it… so we took a short tram ride out to the sea.

Porto… a gritty city, but also full of treasures… and a couple lovable dogs. It’s not the easiest to get around – first, because Portuguese is a tricky language, (and very few people speak English), and second, there are more than normal predatory people, trying to make a buck off a foreigner. But it's a great city to explore once one is comfortable with a language barrier – and the occasional miscreant.