One Day in Porto Portugal

in Pinmapple2 years ago (edited)

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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.

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Porto is one of the largest cities in Portugal next to Lisbon, the country's capital.

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It's located in the Northwestern part of the country close to the ocean on the Northern bank of the Douro River.

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According to the city's tourism site Porto was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1996,

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it was declared a European cultural Capital along with the city of Rotterdam in 2001,

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and Forbes Magazine named it the "City to Visit" in the year 2017.

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The city is kind of a big deal as you can clearly see. Especially when it comes to culture and history.

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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.

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It has several really cool and interesting neighborhoods,

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one of which is the Sé district.

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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.

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It has a ton of character and charm and definitely has a feel of being one of the older parts in the city.

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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.

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Bolhao is another cool neighborhood that has some neat stuff to do and see.

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Igreja de Santo Ildefonso

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.

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There were quite a few of them around the area and each are very cool to see up close if youre able to.

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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.

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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?

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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.

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It looked more like a regular church around the other side though.

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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.

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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.

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Something that I really wanted to do but that didn't work out for us was to visit Livraria Lello.

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It's a really stunning looking bookstore (according to online photos) that is famous in the city.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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The Ribeira district is probably the best and most exciting part of the city in my opinion.

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It's a lively spot along the water and has a lot of very fun and colorful buildings.

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It also has cobblestone streets, which we love,

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a really cool old fashioned trolly car,

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and just an all out ton of character and charm.

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Walking along the water you'll see many restaurants and bars that you could stop at for lunch, dinner or drinks.

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They come with some amazing views of the water, complete with boats passing by in the distance.

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There is also the view of the Monastery at Vila Nova de Gaia.

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We ate dinner at a restaurant above the promanade which can be seen in the photos below.

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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.

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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.

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Another church that I liked in the Ribeira district was the church of St Francis.

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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.

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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.

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We didn't go inside but I liked the architecture of the exterior and some of the stone statues.

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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.

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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.

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Well thats it for now. If you are interested in seeing more of our trip to Portugal than stay tuned, theres more to come. Until next time, thanks for stopping by.

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Amazing to see people come to my city to visit everything :D

One little correction, it is not Nova de Gaia. It is Vila Nova de Gaia.

Are you planning to do the boat trip in the river?

Sometimes it can be very interesting to see a place that you're very familiar with through another person's eyes and/or how others see it. So have you been into the Livraria Lello bookstore and if so, was it amazing? What do you think about them charging money to get in?

We didn't do a boat tour when we were there in May but I'm sure that it would have been awesome.

It is Vila Nova de Gaia.

Thanks for the correction. I'll go back and change that.

It may seem strange but I have never entered Lello bookshop because I don't agree that you have to pay to enter.

One day you happen to come back here, try taking a boat ride in Rio.

Yeah I agree. It doesn't seem right to have to pay to enter a store, especially if it is not deducted from any purchases.

I'll keep the boat ride in mind if we ever go back. I would like to one day.

It does look awesome. I like to spend as much time as I can when in cool places in the old town as well. I love little narrow streets and all that character!

Yeah narrow street are the bomb.

Do people still say "the bomb?" 🤔

Surely they do. Perhaps more Da bomb lol!!

Haha true dat 😂

You got it! ;OD

As good as the ice cream looks I hope you didnt miss the "pastel de nata"?:)
Also I really enjoyed how you highlighted the colorfullness of the streets!!

I didn't miss out on them. We had them at the Majestic Cafe that morning. 😁😋
Yeah, I thought that the city was really quite beautiful with all the colors.

even better then😊

I have to admit, Porto is an amazing city and you, my dear man give some of the greatest tours ever!!

If this psychologist thing doesn't work out, you have a place in travel guides or tours.

Love the blue tiles and all the freaking architecture here! Never enough!

Haha thanks, I appreciate that.
Yeah the blue tiles are pretty neat. They seemed very unique to Portugal. I'm not sure if any other countries do them as well.

Portugal really an interesting destination, this city oozes with charm in old world character and design, thanks for taking us along to see through your lens.

!LUV travel!

Yeah it definitely has all of those things. I'm glad you liked the tour! Thanks for stopping by. 👊

Have a wonderful weekend, never reached Portugal or Spain when travelling, perhaps one day who knows....

Hopefully one day you do, if it's on your list of places to see that is. If not there is always Hive to travel vicariously through others. Enjoy your weekend as well.

Detailed scenic travel with members posts here on Hive has one longing to travel, if only expense was not always the issue. Now travel through lens with descriptive writing is always enlightening.

if only expense was not always the issue.

Yeah true. Unfortunately that will never go away either 😕

Places become popular, prices go up. On our currency there is no way we could make Europe without putting a big dent into savings.

Your posts and vibrant photos never fail to stir wanderlust. This makes me understand why my sister-in-law planned another visit to Portugal despite visiting it before the pandemic.

Yeah Portugal is a very beautiful country with colorful cities. Definitely worth seeing. 👌

wow, I never imagined Porto to have such a great old town, I also appreciate your multi-tasking skills, eating an ice cream whilst snapping away, truly genius!! 🤣

Haha it is quite the skill indeed 🤓

👍🍦😂

Hey @leaky20
The place is so stunning - full of charm and little characters every where. I absolutely love it.
The tram too:)
Of course, rum raisin is a must on every vacation, especially in the hot weather... Did you lick each other's cream?

Rum raisin - that's classic.

Lol We don't share ice cream or any food for that matter. We both have our stabby forks out when we eat to guard against stray hands.

Haha!
I don't share my ice cream for sure...and yes, I hate stray hands too. We only share like if we go out for a Chinese or an Indian... I like my personal things in general, such as toothbrush (yes), coffee mugs, and some other stuff that cannot pop to mind right now 🤣
.
.
Oh yes, rum raisin first choice, pistachio second choice 😋
NEVER Chocolate!

Pistachio is a good one. I get that regularly. I always go for chocolate though.

What a wonderful view around and great write up @leaky20
Stunning those old houses and all those colours and cobblestones.
It does look like the last area is nicer… the ribeira district.
Great captures, they do show us the character and overall feel.

Such a shame that book store is now sooo busy, nope we wouldn’t pay that much just to get in.
Thanks so much for sharing! Enjoy your Thursday 👋🏻☀️

Yeah the Ribeira district was very nice. It was our favorite part I think. I liked many parts though really.

Yeah 10E for two people to have the privilege of buying something in a store is too much for me. I could see it if it was a deposit that was taken off any purchases but as far as I could tell that wasn't the case. Personally I would never pay 30E for a 20E book lol.

I can imagine as Porto seems to be a stunning place.

Yep, same thoughts here… 🤔🤓
You do see that sometimes, when there is an entrance fee it will be taken of food/ drinks or a purchase, but if it is not… yeah well. They loose out, eventually people stop going.

Yeah I can totally see a place charging admission to stop people from filling up a store just to take photos and then not buying anything, but it should definitely be deducted from purchases of a sale for actual customers. The only thing that I read was that members who pay a monthly or annual fee to the store don't need to pay to get in.

Agree.
Ok, that makes sense to give “members” free entrance.

Yeah for sure since they have already paid, otherwise you're just gouging people and double charging them. I would also hope that membership gets you discounts on merchandise as well, at the very least.

As would be expected to have some kind of discount.

Thanks for the tour brother, it looks really great! I am reading the comment section to see what you're up to next!

Thanks man. I'm glad you liked it. I have a major backlog at the moment. I'm working on stuff from back in May still. On a positive note, I'll have post material for when I move back to Canada, which is quite soon - just a little over a month. Are you still in South France or did you end up moving back to S. Africa?

Love the architecture and colours of the buildings! The whole place looks incredible and I'm happy it's part of UNESCO :)

Yeah it seems like a good city to protect for sure.

Great photos. !BEER

Love that country. Can´t wait to be back in a month.

Yeah it's an amazing country for sure

What a beautiful tour! I like how clear and vibrant the photos are.

Thanks I'm glad you liked them

You're welcome! Have a lovely weekend :)

You as well

I enjoyed reading your post and it feels like I am having a virtual tour in Porto just by looking at these photos. Thank you for letting us witness the beauty of Portugal 🙂

Thanks. I'm glad you enjoyed the tour.

Beautiful photos!!

Thanks 😁

Porto oh Porto. One of the most beautiful cities around here. Aaaw how lovely to see suchh a great post about Portugal 😍❤️👍🏼🤗💯👌🏼💖👏🏼☀️super cool. Rehived. Hope you had fun here and a great time.

Yeah it's definitely a beautiful city and cou try. We enjoyed it a lot.

💖🙏🏼☀️great to hear. Portugal has beautiful areas. for Portuguese it is even a pleasure to show travelers the lovely spots. a "secret" tipp is also: Madeira and acores 💖💯👌🏼

We didn't make it to the Azores but Yeah we loved Madeira. That destination is still to come lol

I enjoyed the photos so much 😍😍✨ How I wish I will be able to visit Portugal soon. Ever since I was young, I always dreamt to visit this place 🥺✨

I hope that you get tonone day.

From this post I learned that Portugal is also very beautiful, the places you have visited are full of colors. It is also very interesting to see the architecture of the places you visited, I really like those too.

Yeah the architecture is great there. I'm glad you enjoyed the photos.

Beautiful pictures
!PGM
!LUV
!LOLZ

wow!

what an incredible experience!
Thank you for sharing such beautiful photos.

You're welcome. I'm glad you liked them.

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