Even more Porto

About 24hrs later we're back at the same spot where yesterday Gill pronounced that Porto was Bristol's more handsome twin. Our verdict? Well, lovely as we think Brizzle is, Porto probably does edge it, and now we find ourselves trying to think which other cities have been highlights - Valencia, Salamanca, Marseille, Cadiz, Aix en Provence, Palermo - what we realised is our stomachs as much as our eyes are making choices, each one of these places involved great food and a cafe culture as well as having visual appeal. Surprisingly, our off the cuff list included no mainland Italian cities, which is odd given how much we like Italy. 

For once we have been quite organised in the way we planned our visit. Out usual trick is to arrive with a badly photocopied street map provides by a campsite, or no map whatsoever, and then wander about discovering delightful spots by accident. This time we followed a 3km walk though the centre suggested by our Lonely Planet guide book. This worked really well as it enabled us to get a feel of Porto which helped us decide where we might wish to explore a little more on our second day. I decided to make a little video of the walk's highlights complete with bathetic commentary. I may even upload edited highlights, if I ever get around to sorting it using the irritatingly primitive 'Moviemaker' software on our cute, but underpowered Asus laptop. 

How do you sum up somewhere like Porto? Well if it's true that a picture is worth a thousand words then we took a slim novel's worth over the two days we spent here. So, here's a few of them gathered together: 

1. A spectacular setting

Porto is only about 5km from the sea which makes its setting on the side of a gorge quite unusual. I asked Gill, "Apart from Bristol, can you think of any other port city built on a steep sided gorge like this?

"Sunderland," she replied.

2. Stylish streets and great architecture 

One of the most attractive aspects of Porto is that the architecture of its main streets is drawn from every era since the 16th century. Even earlier here and there, bits of the old Arabic walls can be found alongside the bridge. Some lovely modernista shopfronts are scattered about, and across the river the warehouses of the famous port houses are impressive. This area was the only place that felt like a real tourist trap, designed essentially for the cruise boat trade.

3. Shabby chic or simply decrepit?

A bit of both really. Porto centre is still lived-in. Even more unusual, the tangle of alleyways beneath the bridge is still a working class barrio, it has not been entirely gentrified. Parts are fashionably decrepit, with stylish little restaurants cheek by jowl with tumbled-down, graffiti daubed buildings. Other streets simply look half abandoned.

4 Roofscapes

One of the things that makes Porto so visually appealing is the way is is multi-layered and you get glimpses of the grey  river through a jumble of red roofs. conversely, you will round a corner and suddenly you are confronted by the girders of the old bridge.

5. Soundscapes.

More than anywhere I can recall Porto generates its own soundtrack, street musicians, live and canned music spilling out of the bars and restaurants, passing cars with thudding bass speakers all compete with the rattle of trams, police sirens and the hubbub of the crowded streets - difficult to photograph a soundscape...

cool jazz

Some variety of dance - house? drum and bass? was blasting out of the open door - filling the neighbourhood with party vibe before noon.

from  the interior of one of the cafes a lone woman was singing, unaccompanied, classically trained, but with a bluesy edge....

6. Foodscapes

Can you have a foodscape? Some cities do, I think, their character is inexorably associated with their cafes, restaurants and food stalls. Donostia was like that, Naples and Palermo too. We have to add to that Porto - for port, white, tawny and red, of course. Also dishes like Bolinho, deep fried potato and salt cod mixed with cheese - a bit like a Sicilian aranchini.

7. The most beautiful station in the world?

The only one we've been to remotely as beautiful was Grand Central in New York. The main hall of Sao Bento station, clad in azulejos - painted tiles - is exquisite. As well as the scenes of battles and conquests from Porto's history, the thing I liked the most were the 'genre' scenes, little snippets of peasant life. It was sheer luck that we arrived in Porto by train. What a great welcome to a lovely city.

8. The art of polite graffiti.

In the battle between graffiti artists and municipal authorities every city comes to a different accomodation, a kind of unspoken tacit agreement about what goes. In Palermo and Naples the artists seem to have won hands down, graffiti abounds. In most British cities graffiti exists on the margins, bus shelters, the underside of bridges and flyovers, multistorey stairwells, but by and large the main public buildings are graffiti free. Porto lies somewhere in-between, street furniture, buildings in the poorer quarter, abandoned structures, concrete retaining walls - all seem fair game; churches, shops, municipal buildings, trams, trains - all pristime. The graffiti artists of Porto are well mannered radicals.

Next to the bridge - a wrecked building is a graffiti fest

The iconic bridge - pristine.

The spirit of Porto?

There is something mischievious and spirited about Porto. These two, clearly bunking off school, summed this up for me. The lower level of  Porto's famous bridge is probably forty feet or so above the river. The pair were fleecing tourists for a euro each to watch them dive in. I saw a lot of euros being collected in a trainer by their older companion who was working the crowd.... but I never saw either of the daredevils actually dive off the bridge.

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