All Things Beautiful in Porto

The rain followed me from Lisbon, where it mostly drizzled, to Porto where it came down in sheets. I didn’t mind because as a resident of southern California I could use the moisture. Also, in a city like Porto rain works for ambiance. Against the narrow streets and gothic buildings you can practically see the ghosts of peasant women turning the laundry. As one of Europe’s oldest cities, Porto has architecture and buildings that date back to the 11th century, including Gothic, Roman, Rococo, and many others I won’t pretend to know. It’s a layered mishmash of European styles that makes walking around Porto an experience of being inside history, especially for someone coming from the forest of half constructed Luxury condo high rises in a city like Los Angeles.

I stayed at bnapartments Carregal in a renovated 17th century palace. I think I was in the “servant’s quarters” which I found cozier and less haunted than the way actual palace. The interior of my apartment was designed with a lot of cork, as well as mid-century design. Northern Portugal is known for cork trees and my apartment had enough cork to bottle a hundred bottles of wine. The people who renovated it put a lot of thought into style and feng shui and I felt like I could easily just move in and live there.

A lot of Porto renovations employ a mid-century style, which when you put beside the azulejo tile work results is cool mixed aesthetic, like centuries colliding on top of each other.

First Day

On my first day in Porto I signed up for a walking tour by a company called Revolouters.  I was pretty sure it would be cancelled, as I stood in the rain with Andres, the tour guide in front of the Centro Português de Fotografia (which is also the old jail). But sure enough five other young women showed up and we were on. Andres happily gave his umbrella to two women from Germany and just let it rain on his hoodie.

Andres started off the tour with an introduction to the statue of Camilo Castelo Branco, a guy who went to prison twice in the 1800s: first for unearthing the remains of his dead wife (fun) and then having an affair with a married woman, which was against the law.  While in jail he wrote “Amor de Perdiciao” which translates to something like “love is doomed.”  He later went blind from syphilis and committed suicide. So, yeah, the guy knew how to party.

Andres then took us through the historic center and told us how Port was invented (they put the rum in the wine being shipped to England to keep it from going bad) and how Portuguese were also the first slave traders (humblebrag). The tour ended, conveniently, at a wine bar. The bartender made us a port tonic in an elaborate display that included smoke and the burning of cinnamon. Not sure I noticed the flavor, but the presentation was work 8 euros.

Since he didn’t hate spending a day with six women, afterwards Andres took us to a local Portuguese restaurant with grilled meat and great deserts. We drank (Vino Verde) Green Wine which is dryer than most whites in California.

After that Andres took us to another bar where we did shots of tequila. Afterwards The Walking Tour That Would Not End headed to two more clubs, one of which was on the top floor of what looked like an abandoned building. At this point I pulled out the “I’m old” card,” even though the young women insisted I follow them into the club because I need “content” for my blog. Good point but I passed from whatever came to pass because I am not in my twenties and one tequila shot put me at risk of not making it home.

Over the next few days I walked all over Porto. Every corner features some tiled building that looks like it belongs in a museum. Some of these buildings are empty and abandoned, as if they are trash and not architecture and design to be cherished. Families not wanting to fight in various colonial wars just left them there and the government can’t take them over until a decades long period of time. Again, as a California native, who is used to NIMBY’s (Not In My Backyard wealthy home owners) crying over the destruction of a fifty-year-old building, leaving meticulously built works of architecture to the fates seems strange.

Restaurants

The following night I went to the restaurant next to BN Apartments in a restaurant that was once a church called “Capela Incomum.” You need a reservation so I sat by the bar and drank a glass of wine. Speaking of wine, Portugal has really ruined me. Sorry California. None of this full-bodied heavy tannen-y stuff, the wine is smooth and light and I have not had a bad glass of red or white. Turns out, I’m not one for big or bold wines. Portugal has thousands of grapes and everything is smooth.

As I sat waiting I met a Brazilian who lives in London. Thanks to the Portuguese “expansion” (as it was described in one museum), but what I would call “colonization” Portuguese is spoken in places all over the world, including Angola, Mozambique and even in China.  I ended up having dinner with him and his friend and it became one of those experiences that happen when you travel solo and results in life-long Instagram-following.

One of the Brazilians worked for a michelin-ranked restaurant which I went to the following night called Gruta which is female owned and exceptional.

Peneda Geres National Park

For my last day, which happened to be Thanksgiving, I signed up for hike in Peneda Geres National Park. My tour guide Pedro drove me and a girl from Russia the two and a half hours where we hiked five miles in the pouring rain. We stopped at a few shepherds shelters that are strewn around and got water from man made springs. It was beautiful and I didn’t mind the rain up until I stepped in one and then another puddle. Even then it was worth it because, dang! Look at the pictures!

Final Thoughts

Unlike Lisbon, I found many people do not speak English in Porto. And even if I did learn some Portuguese in my two months in Brazil twenty years ago, I could never understand it. A good translation app and Spanish came in handy.

Before I left I violated my own “no clothes shopping” policy and got a blazer at a “Black Friday” sale. Yes, America is never too far. But the fashions of Porto were so cool, I wanted a souvenir and tile is just too heavy. (Though not a bottle of Port).