Wow Porto!

Porto is a really nice town! It is on the river Douro and is the second largest city in Portugal after Lisbon. Not many people live in the main part of town as it is small and very expensive, most live in the surrounding metropolitan area.

The hotel is close to the centre of town and the street it is on is so narrow that when we arrived yesterday we had to unload people and bags from the bus as fast as possible as we blocked the whole street.

Another thing about Porto is the whole city seems to be a big construction site. Our guide said there were elections coming up and this is the reason so much is happening. They are building two new metro lines which seem to be causing most of the issues.

Porto is also very hilly with a steep drop down from the heights to the river. The main claim to fame for Porto is that this is where port wine was created.

Our first stop today was the Stock Exchange Palace. This wasn’t a stock exchange in the typical form rather it was the Chamber of Commerce for Porto. It was built in the 1800s and is now used mainly as a fancy function centre. It is an impressive building with loads of different rooms and a large glass dome over the central space.

The Palace is not far from the river so we walked down to the Riberia area. This is all a Unesco World Heritage Site so it is very well preserved. Originally this was the main trading hub for the city with ships coming in from overseas and smaller boats plying the river bringing wine down from the upper valley and taking other goods back up the river. The other side of the river is called Gaia and is where there are a lot of warehouses to store barrels of wine.

The two side of the river are connected by many bridges with the most impressive being the Luis 1 Bridge. This was designed by a colleague of Gustav Eiffel and was opened in 1886. We walked across the lower span but you can catch a cable car up from Gaia and walk across the top span as well. The lower span carries cars and the top span carries trains.

We went for a port tasting in one of the warehouses on the Gaia side as well as a short river cruise.

We then headed back into town for a light lunch and walked up the hill to the fancy bookshop Livraria Lello. This bookshop opened in 1881 and it well known for its ornate interior and the split staircase in the middle of the shop. Suffice to say it was packed. Anyway we took some photos and escaped!

We headed back to the hotel to freshen up for dinner.

Dinner was at a restaurant recommended to me by a work colleague and was it different. The decor was something straight out of the 1970s with heavy wood paneling and retro lights. The food was seriously excellent, steak and veggies washed down with a bottle of Douro valley rose wine BUT the big thing with this restaurant was the view. Portucale restaurant is located on the top floor of a building on top of a hill with views from the Atlantic all the way inland. We were there right on sunset so we could get in a few photos. An excellent meal and a great venue, all for only 116 euro.

Tomorrow we are back into Spain.Read more