Rosie and The Operator are visiting Porto in Portugal and only have one full day to see all the sights! Porto is an easily walkable city with all the sights pretty close together and Rosie is confident she will see all that has been recommended to her by Antonio, our exuberant apartment host, in our limited time frame.
Our one day started with yesterdays blog and a visit to the famed JK Rowling/Harry Potter inspired Majestic Cafe and The Lello Liveria, plus the Clergios Tower. Today, Rosie will show you the rest of the magnificent city that is Porto.
Down the road from our apartment, this looks like one big church…but no, believe it or not there are two. The Carmo & Carmelitas Churches are built side by side and separated in the middle by one of the worlds narrowest houses….see the little white window, right in the middle, with its own door at the bottom…that’s the house.
The house was built to separate the convent of nuns from the monastery of monks in the 17th Century. Serious!
You can see also how different the two churches are in their architectural style due to the slightly different timings of the builds.
The side of the church is covered in beautiful azulejo tiles which are from Arabic origin and are popular in the exterior cladding of buildings in Portugal and Spain. The pictures on the tiles are all hand painted and tiles were used as exterior cladding because at the time they were inexpensive, durable, reflected the light well and were easily cleaned.
The blue and white just look so amazing and totally make the buildings stand out and look so unique. Mind you, check out this modern take on exterior building tiling. This is amazing!
Even the building sites are getting in on the act….this is the wrap they put around buildings that are being renovated to keep the sites safe. Very apt for this city!
The blue tiled churches are just stunning though! There is one standing tall and proud on nearly every block it seems in the city. The religious stories painted on the outside reflect the church and which saints or holy entity they are dedicated to. Antonio (our apartment host and city guide) said the churches inside were pretty plain, all of their beauty is on the outside and with our limited time, he advised not visiting the insides…The Operator reminded Rosie of this…at every single church.
The detail on the hand painted tiles are exquisite. Think about it….the scenes are not painted in situ, on the wall of the church. Each tile is hand painted individually, then glazed and baked in the workshop and then taken to the site and put up like a giant jig saw…..amazing. Look how small the tiles actually are….then think about the immense job on these giant churches.
Whilst we are talking tiles, check out Sao Bento. This is the Porto Train Stations arrival/departure hall, it is breath taking. There were more tourists in here taking pics….than catching trains.
The coloured tile frieze around the top depicts the history of travel in Portugal and the large blue pictures represent historical images.
It’s a little more peaceful out on the quite platform.
The trams run all over the city, if you hear their bells you better get out of the way! The overhead wires however are a curse for the photographer!
The sun is getting warmer yet the shadows are still quite cool and it feels so great being out and about in the spring sunshine. Everyone has a smile on their faces and this dude playing the accordion is doing great business with his little pal next to him, he doesn’t sound half bad either.
The Rua des Flores (Street of Flowers) was once lived on in the 16th century by the bourgeoisie of the town of Porto and has an abundance of small beautiful palaces that are being slowly done up. You know how Rosie likes to wander around taking pictures!
Utilities boxes are all decorated with pics on them and what was once a really rundown area of town, has now been pedestrianized, revitalized, (well partially, its a work in progress), into a great bohemian kind of area full of art, cafes and coolness.
There are many artists selling their artworks in the city. Their displays are sometimes art themselves.
The Operator wants me to include this picture of the window display full of port bottles, he claims this is more his art style…have you ever seen so many bottles?
A horseman of the apocalypse stands guard outside the Porto Cathedral. Well, Rosie doesn’t know if that is actually true, she heard a British tourist say that to his wife, she seemed convinced he knew what he was talking about…he was holding a guide book. Rosie will believe him too.
The cathedral was started 1110 but was not completed until 1737, six hundred years later! It is very severe, plain and minimal in appearance but awesome in its looming domination.
It too like a lot of Porto is in line for a little well needed TLC. Weeds are growing out of nooks and crannies on the side of the building, it is crumbling quite badly and you can tell it has had no face lift like other buildings of its age around the world. Hopefully it too will get its day of spa treatments some time soon.
This group of houses as seen looking down from the terrace of the cathedral kind of re iterates Rosie’s initial perception of a neglected Porto. The sides are shored up and one has a caved in roof yet people are still living in the row and shops are still operating. A party was going on outside the end of the terrace, music was playing, a table had been moved into the sunshine, drinks and food were being bought out and then everyone started dancing!
From the Cathedral we walked down the skinny steep ramshackle alleyways down to the river. This area under the bridge seemed totally neglected and run down, with a large area actually roped off to the public. There were still people trying to sell fabric, crafts and water from their doorways to the tourists as they passed by in the lane on this lesser trod route to the river.
On the riverside, you feel like you are standing in a shadowy wind tunnel. Straight in front of you is the most famous bridge in Porto, the Don Louis the First bridge.
On your left, moving away from the city, colourful housing of all styles of decrepit, newly renovated, re-clad and derelict rise up the steep hillside from the road.
On your right, stretches The Ribeira, the Porto riverfront where you can stroll past all the cafes, restaurants and bars.
The road itself along the riverfront is narrow and winds away following the slow moving dark green river. Fisherman stand high above the river on cantilever metal decks overhanging the river fishing.
This bridge below, is the Don Louis the First bridge which straddles the Douro River and is the image of the river you see on every postcard or picture of Porto.
It is a double decked, arched bridge that links Porto to the Gaia suburb where the Port cellars are. Built in 1886, at the time, it was the longest spanning bridge of its type in the world at 172 meters and was made by a student of Gustav Eiffel. You know, that famous tower in Paris dude. Six bridges span the Douro river in total from the city with this being the most famous.
There is a lot of traffic traversing the lower deck of the bridge, both walking like us and on all modes of noisy transport.
Port barges line the river on the Gaia side and a street market stretches the length of the Gaia waterfront. Nowadays the barges ferry tourists up and down the river but they still look the part with their curved graceful prows and barrels on the deck.
The famous Port cellars are all over this side of the river because the slightly cooler micro climate was better for the storage and aging of the Port, now the hard part for Rosie and The Operator is to pick a cellar for a sample.
Rosie and The Operator are tired from our day of walking, it is time for a very late lunch in the sunshine and time to soak in the atmosphere all around us.
So, sitting riverside at the Sandemans Celler in Gaia, we mull over the amazing city that is Porto over a platter and tipple of White Port and Ten Year Old Tawny. Watching the twinkling river and the busy ant like trains of people on the Porto Ribiera across the other side, listening to the birds sign and feeling the spring warmth on our faces we say good bye to this amazing city.
Tomorrow we are driving to Lisbon…and Antonio has given us some amazing tips for stops and visits along the way.
