Portugal: Porto

June 2017

Portugal was a country I had never really considered going to, until my brother said hey why not Portugal?
Well, why not?
I didn't know very much about the country, except that tourists often think they speak Spanish, which is probably very offensive, considering they have their own language, complex history, and are in fact considered one of the oldest states in the entirety of Europe, having been constantly settled (without shifting borders) since prehistory.
We decided to rent a car, to see as much of this varied country as we could, considering it's known for everything from city life, to beaches, to mountains. The landscape is varied depending on which of the seven main regions you are in, and although we unfortunately didn't end up having enough time to see much of the coast, we covered a lot of other beautiful areas!

Porto
We landed in Porto, home to the famous alcoholic beverage port, and a historic city in its own right. The architecture is very particular, with brightly colored houses and terracotta roofs. The Duoro river intersects the town, and is forded by dramatic bridges. Strangely enough, I didn't love Porto, even though I really wanted to. It would be the rest of Portugal that I would really fall in love with. In saying that, there were a number of things in this city that I really did enjoy!















Porto is Portugal's second largest city (Lisbon being the largest, which would be our last stop on our trip), and has a long history with records dating back to Roman times (and likely older).

One of the first places we checked out was Capela das Almas, cheerfully called the Chapel of Souls; this church is adorned with the lives of saints on blue and white tiles, a style dating to the 18th century, but in this case created in a 20th century refurbishment. It reminded me of delftware, a bright blue and white pottery from Delft in the Netherlands, and was a pleasant change from the dark stone churches one usually sees. This artistic style is dotted around the city, and super worth checking out in other locations, especially the train station!

Our next stop had my inner fan girl squealing, Livraria Lello was the bookshop that inspired J.K. Rowling's description of Flourish and Blotts, the magical bookstore from Harry Potter. You bet I got a selfie. Fair warning though, its ridiculously busy, so don't expect the usual place of tranquility and rest that bookstores offer. There is also a small fee to enter (5 euro).

We also popped into the museum of Photography, housed in an old prison, and completely free! Just watch out for the women's toilets, which have very rusty locks on the stalls, leading to me slicing open my hand and bleeding everywhere. The poor security guard then kindly disinfected and wrapped my hand up, panicking somewhat as he repeatedly told me "I don't know what I'm doing!" He seemed to do a good job though. Aside from the incident, the prison has some lovely exhibitions.

A trip to Porto wouldn't be complete without sampling its culinary delights of course, both food and drink! We stopped at a lovely little Deli called Mercearia das Flores, which also served tapas. I then proceeded to eat the best (and, alright, my first portion of) fried sheep cheese in olive oil, honey and thyme ever.  I will be back for you one day, glorious cheese.

Porto being the birthplace of Port, we were of course obligated to take a tour of one of the city's many Port Houses. We chose Calem, as it seemed to be reasonably priced (12 euro each), and had good reviews. I would highly recommend it, as it included not only an awesome tour of the factory and the process port goes through to be made, but also a tasting of a white Port, and a tawny. Both were delicious, though the tawny was my favourite! We bought a bottle of Ruby at the store however, as it was the third type we didn't get to try in the tasting.

 Before Porto, I didn't even know that there were different types of Port, so to learn about these, and also the history was very interesting. Funnily enough, its in part due to the English that Port came about at all. The Portuguese wine did not survive the sea journey to England well, therefore to combat this, the wine was fortified (initially by sailors adding brandy to try and make it taste better) and thus aged better, surviving the journey and becoming popular in its own right.