Discovering Portugal: Porto

Porto is a must-see destination, something that you have to put on the top of your bucket list. Beside the fact that it has a fascinating World Heritage Site, it is also the city of bridges and the home to one of the best wines in the world, the port wine. We visited the place in the summer of 2014, and thanks to this trip, we have become immensely interested in the whole country and its friendly inhabitants .

Porto is located 300 km to the North from Lisbon and is the second largest city in Portugal. It is connected with five bridges to the village on the southern side of the river Douro called Villa Nova de Gaia.

Day 1

We stayed 3 nights in a hotel, not far away from the center so that we could easily visit most touristic attractions on foot. After our arrival, we had a short walk to the Palacio de Cristal, where you can admire a beautiful park and an even more beautiful view over Douro. It is the sort of place where you will probably take thousands of photos, because you will feel like none of them can truly capture what you can see with your very own eyes. Still, you want to have proof of the sight, something that can remind you that it wasn’t only a dream.

Being quite tired from the long trip to Porto and after our peaceful wander in and around the park, we looked for a place to have dinner and then returned to the hotel to relax and get ready for the next day.

Day 2

Unfortunately, we woke up to grey and rainy weather, which prevented us from visiting some of the planned places. We did take the metro to reach another very nice viewpoint of the city, where you can see the whole riverbank and the grandiose bridges. Again, we spent there quite a while to take a bunch of photos, which we were planning to later show off to our family and friends. The whole structure of Porto is just amazing. You cannot really avoid crossing the river, the famous D. Luís I Bridge even has a different level dedicated to a metro line.

As I have mentioned above, the weather wasn’t the best, so the other highlight of our day was to try out traditional dish of Porto, the Francesinha. It is basically a sandwich, although there is no way you could guess that from its look. Legend has it that it was created in the mid-20thcentury by Daniel de Silva, a returned emigrant from France, who wanted to reform the croque-monsieur and adapt it to Portuguese taste.

The main ingredients are bread, wet-cured ham and sausage, with melted cheese on top. The whole sandwich is than covered in a special sauce that is kept a secret from the public. Each restaurant has its own variation to it, however, its crucial base is beer. It has a very strange reddish-orange colour, but everything all together tastes delicious. If you are in Porto, you cannot miss it!

Day 3

Our third day was 90% perfect. We had a beautiful sunny weather, and we were informed at the reception of the hotel about a combined ticket for about 20€ that includes an entry to the sightseeing bus, a 20-30-minute-long boat trip on the river and wine-tasting in three different cellars. It seemed a fair price, and you only live once, so we decided to buy it. First, we hopped on the sightseeing bus, which took us all the way to the ocean. It was a very comfortable way to discover the city: we were just sitting on the bus, enjoying the sunshine and listening to the guidance in our headphones.

After the bus tour, we had to wait a short time to get on the boat, so we decided to have a nice stroll along the river in the oldest area of Porto, the Cais da Ribeira. This district is full of restaurants selling port wine, so if we didn’t have a free ticket already, we probably would have tried one of them. But instead, we choose a bar on the riverbank to have something to eat and drink, while feeding the fishes in the river.

A little bit later, we were sitting on the boat with many other tourists waiting to depart. As always, I was ready to take photos, but the truth is that at that moment I preferred to enjoy the moment and put the camera back in my bag. Therefore, I cannot upload photos of the boat trip, but I can assure you it's really worth the price.

Afterwards, we were so hungry that we decided to take a seat in one of the restaurants on the riverbank, despite knowing that the prices were higher due to the luxurious view. Fortunately, we always share food and drinks, so we were still expecting an affordable price. But here comes the reason of why the day was only 90% perfect. You need to know that in some bars in Spain, they serve free starters, like bread or breadsticks. Although nowadays it’s less and less likely, in the past it was very common. Contrariwise in Portugal.

Of course, being first-time visitors, we didn't know anything, plus the starters they brought looked as if they had been there for a while waiting to be eaten the whole day and instead of throwing them out, they just served them to the people. At the point they brought us shells, we started to get suspicious, but still not enough to realize that they were going to make us pay for it. My boyfriend was curious and tried the shell, but it didn’t taste very good.

After ordering, we were patiently waiting and having a conversation about how perfect Porto was, when another older couple with seemingly better financial background sat down to the table right next to us. While they were looking at the menu, they started to comment on how expensive the bread was. The food in our mouth literally froze when we realized we had to pay for it, and we pushed the whole plate far away from us.

After having an otherwise absolutely delicious meal, we were waiting in fear for the bill. Our late discovery turned reality, but the most ridiculous part was that for the low-quality "free" starters that we barely ate, they charged us almost double as the price of our normal meal. However, it didn’t cross our minds for a second that we were going to pay for it. We ended up creating a scene in the middle of the restaurant. They were threatening to call the police, but it was clear that they just saw an opportunity in us: a young inexperienced couple that can easily be tricked. They tried with many different things, they even lied saying that they warned us, but that wasn’t true at all! So in the end, we only paid for those small couple of bites we had and left the place in victory.

After an afternoon like that, we just wanted a quiet evening back at the hotel, so that’s what we had.

Day 4

We were planning to leave Porto in the early afternoon, but the wine-tasting was still ahead of us. This was not a good decision for two different reasons. First of all, since Guille had to drive us back home, he could only try a couple of sips from the wine glasses, which was a real shame as they were really good. The other reason was that I was the one who had to drink all of them, and my alcohol tolerance is not very high... So let’s just say that by the end of our wine cellar tour, I was in my own happy world.

Last but not least, our Porto adventure was crowned by a last Francesinha. We definitely liked it a lot.

All in all, Porto is a beautiful city, I was absolutely impressed by it.

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