Last Friday I took a flight to Porto with my wife. We wanted to go during the summer but there was so much work on the farm it was impossible to schedule the trip, so after spending all the summer in Portugal, I just took a flight to Porto the first weekend I was in the house :)
We took a very early flight and although the flight was slightly delayed due to fog at Porto airport, we reached our destination at 9:00 am. We scheduled a guided tour at 11:00 so we just took the metro and in about 30 minutes we reached the old town. We immediately fell in love with the city, the old buildings, the hilly cobblestone streets, the tile façades, the coffee shops, the colors, and the river with its bridges, created an ambiance hard to beat.
We sat on a little coffee shop to have one of the popular "nata" pastries while waiting for the start of the tour. There are many places where you can taste the pastry but Fabrica de Nata is probably one of the best, they have several selling points in town so it is quite easy to find one.
Our walking tour was 2.5 hours long and it took place in the area north to the Douro River, starting from the main cathedral.
And visiting the main buildings in the area while listening to all the historical explanations of our guide. We were lucky enough to have no rain during the whole day on Friday with nice temperatures which made the walking tour way nicer.
One of the stopping points was Majestic Coffee where locals say it is the place where J. K. Rowling was initially inspired to write the Harry Potter books while she was living in the city.
Lello bookstore was also a reference for the books as it is said the library on the novel was inspired from there.
The walk by the riverside as the sun was going down was breathtaking, with all the restaurants and ship tours along the river. You could see some of the Porto wineries at Gaia, the city on the other side of the Douro River.
And the impressive Luis I steel bridge which we walked to reach the other side.
If you cross the bridge from the top, walking or using the metro, you can go down using the cable car as seen in the image below.
There are hundreds of restaurants on the waterfront and on the tiny streets around it, and most of them serve Bacalhao, (Cod), the most popular fish in its more than 100 different cooking ways.
Here's an image of the old wood boats which were used by the wineries to transport the barrels of wine. You can see the city riverwalk behind.
And here's another one with the impressive bridge from the other side.
We walked along the wineries which you can visit for tasting or use the restaurants many of them have to have your dinner while enjoying the city view.
On Saturday, the rain was coming on and off but it did not stop us from walking around the Bolao district and its Santa Catarina commercial street.
We even had a chance to stop by one of the Cerveja Letra stores to have a craft beer :)
We then headed towards Flowers Street
to have some food, I tried a Francesinha, a hot sandwich with sausage, ham, pork, and melted cheese on top, all covered with hot sauce.
and then walked around the many stores full of tyles.
Sunday we just relaxed, walked around, and took the metro to get to the airport to catch our flight back home. All in all, a city I recommend visiting. We will come back for sure.
