It was day two of our seven day trip to Portugal and our day was just begining. After taking in the views at the Monastery in Vila Nova de Gaia in the morning, we crossed over the Luis I Bridge to begin exploring the city of Porto. We spent one full day in town and two evenings and this is what we experienced, but first a brief bit of background information.
Porto is one of the largest cities in Portugal next to Lisbon, the country's capital.
It's located in the Northwestern part of the country close to the ocean on the Northern bank of the Douro River.
According to the city's tourism site Porto was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1996,
it was declared a European cultural Capital along with the city of Rotterdam in 2001,
and Forbes Magazine named it the "City to Visit" in the year 2017.
The city is kind of a big deal as you can clearly see. Especially when it comes to culture and history.
Porto is a massive metropolis that covers a very large chunk of land but we spent most of our time in what I would refer to as the old town. Its a relatively small portion of the greater Metropolitan area with the most character and charm.
It has several really cool and interesting neighborhoods,
one of which is the Sé district.
From the photographs above and below you can see that Sé is characterized by very narrow cobblestone streets that are lined with unique and colorful old century homes.
It has a ton of character and charm and definitely has a feel of being one of the older parts in the city.
Avenida dos Aliados is another area. It's a large avenue in town that connects the older portion of the city to the newer one. The avenue ends in a square surrounding the "Porto sign" and the beautiful City Hall building.
Bolhao is another cool neighborhood that has some neat stuff to do and see.
For instance there are several churches with some intricately detailed "Azulejos." Those are the blue and white tiles on the outsides of buildings that Portugal is known for.
There were quite a few of them around the area and each are very cool to see up close if youre able to.
Igreja dos Clérigos (below) is worth checking out as well. Its another church with a very cool facade in the front and a large tower in the back that can be seen from various parts of the city. You can also climb it for a view of the city if you're so inclined.
We didn't climb it ourselves but instead got ice cream here in the afternoon. Ice cream is a must on any vacation - am I right?
Porto's Cathedral (below) is a particularly large church that was very cool to explore as well. I actually thought that it was a castle when we first approached it.
It looked more like a regular church around the other side though.
There was a large platform with a nice view of the city here and we stopped for a time to look out in the different directions. Some of the cityscapes above were taken here.
Going back to the Bolhao district, there is also Cafe Majestic, which is a really nice historical restaurant that's worth at least sticking your head into to get a glimpse of the interior.
Something that I really wanted to do but that didn't work out for us was to visit Livraria Lello.
It's a really stunning looking bookstore (according to online photos) that is famous in the city.
However, due to Instagram, other social media platforms and blogs (perhaps like mine?) the place has become a major tourist attraction in the city. The store has even started to charge 5€ per person just to enter it.
Basically, if you pay the fee you are able to walk right in, but (supposedly) you can enter for free if you wait in line.
The line up was massive when we were there on a Tuesday and I didn't see the guard allow a single person to enter from the free line, even though no one was standing in the paid line for quite some time. From what I could see, the guard would only ever draw from the paid line and would just wait until someone entered that line instead of pulling from the free one.
If I had to guess I'd say that the people at the back of the free line would have to wait at least an hour to get in - if they ever got in at all?!? We weren't going to pay 10 euros to enter a store so we left without ever seeing the inside. I would have loved to go in but some things just aren't worth it to me.
The Ribeira district is probably the best and most exciting part of the city in my opinion.
It's a lively spot along the water and has a lot of very fun and colorful buildings.
It also has cobblestone streets, which we love,
a really cool old fashioned trolly car,
and just an all out ton of character and charm.
Walking along the water you'll see many restaurants and bars that you could stop at for lunch, dinner or drinks.
They come with some amazing views of the water, complete with boats passing by in the distance.
There is also the view of the Monastery at Vila Nova de Gaia.
We ate dinner at a restaurant above the promanade which can be seen in the photos below.
Right below us during dinner, a little closer to the water, was a man was playing the violin. He played for several hours around dinner time.
We were lucky to be able to listen and watch him play from the terrace while we ate our supper. It was basically dinner and a live show, which was quite the experience for us.
Another church that I liked in the Ribeira district was the church of St Francis.
It's situated at the top of a small stone staircase surrounded by a low stone wall that creates a stone platform in front of it.
From there you can get a good glimpse of some of the buildings in the area as well as an overhead view of the town trolly.
We didn't go inside but I liked the architecture of the exterior and some of the stone statues.
Concluding Remarks
As far as large cities go, Porto was my favorite during our trip to Portugal. I would definitely recommend checking it out if you ever visit the country.
There is so much to see and do there and the town has so much character that I personally think it would be high on anyone's list of favorite travel destinations in the country. If old towns are your thing and if you like cool neighborhoods with historic buildings and architecture and just a general sense of culture, then definitely be sure to put it on your list of destinations.
I hope that you enjoyed the tour. Feel free to let me know your thoughts in the comments.