Minha Morada em Portugal

I spent a beautiful day in Porto on Saturday. The weather was t-shirt gorgeous. I had wanted to visit Porto since a colleague at the Guggenheim had become Director of the Contemporary Art museum there (she has since moved on) and she described the part of town she was eyeing to live in – it sounded magical. And the whole city lived up to the description, it was storybook picturesque. The architecture (Portuguese 1800’s and Art Nouveau I think?) and the light really make it different from any other city I have visited.

Porto is hilly too, with some impressive ones (like the street where my Airbnb was) but not like the dramatic hills in Coimbra and not even as hilly as Lisbon overall. Most of the main sights are right in the downtown center so it is really walkable. There is an extreme amount of construction going on right now (making a new “Red Line” subway – I was proud of how much detail I could read on that caution notice) so that actually gets in the way of easy navigation, both with Apple Maps and literally on foot. But not a big deal, I still got a sense of the flow of the roadways and plazas.

The Avenues are very grande and the architecture very ornate.

The São Bento Train Station is really remarkable and one of the most unique in Europe. The entryway is covered completely in tile, and the colors are vibrant and gorgeous. The pictures on the tiles recount Porto’s history and conclude with the building of the train station.

There is a lovely gf cafe right near the train station and I finally got my gf Pastel de Nata and Bifana (pork sandwich)❤️

The Airbnb was cute but odd, a very old renovated building with the bathroom sink in the living room and the refrigerator up flight of stairs from the kitchen. But still charming.

Right at the end of my block was Miradouro Vitória , a very plain looking overlook patio with a very spectacular view:

Next stop was the Livraria Lello bookstore which is by far the biggest tourist draw in the city right now – there was a 90 minute line for entry, nothing else in town had a line. Supposedly the bookstore had a strong influence on J.K. Rowling when she lived in Porto and was first writing the Harry Potter series. The interior certainly looks like the movie sets – fantastical and over the top. But I couldn’t even get a clear picture of the famous staircase with the hordes of tourists draped all over it.

The main Mercado is close by. There was a concert on the main steps of a cultural heritage singing group from Gaia, the sister town across the river.

The market is great, mostly food and wine/port. You can do a port tasting and get a little charcuterie selection or a sardine tasting (a sardine flight?) with it. Very lovely.

Right after that, I ended up in the middle of a large protest. I got the impression that it was publicized as a housing crisis protest, but that other groups showed up and attached themselves to the end of the proceedings, like Free Palestine and Climate Change. I noted that it was similar in size to the protest Maura and I had seen in Mexico City in the Fall.

It took awhile to get past the group (it was a pretty big protest) to my next stop. The Chapel of Souls/Capela das Almas is a beautifully maintained example of churches covered with azulejos, Portuguese blue and white (usually) tile.

Afterwards I went down to the waterfront area, the Ribera. This Porto area gives you a beautiful view of the Douro River, the D. Luis I bridge and Gaia, the sister city across the river. It’s a lovely spot with amazing views, but even in the middle of January (or perhaps because it’s in the middle of January) overrun by tourists. It was quite a bit crowded with couples, families, and other groups.

This was actually the first moment during my entire trip so far that I felt lonely. I think this was because my experience in Coimbra so far had been what I hoped it would be, which is to live in the city, and treat it as I would treat my life in Queens, filling my days with every day pursuits and necessities – which has brought a sense of calm and wonder whenever an ordinary pursuit is coupled with an amazing view or building or special interaction with other people in the city. But all of a sudden it was very clear that Porto (or at least that piece of it) was not meant to be experienced alone.

I walked over the bridge to Gaia to see the famous view of Porto…

…and it was at that point that I decided that I wasn’t going to stay in Porto that weekend. It is beautiful and I am not writing it off – Tony and I are coming back here when he visits next week before we go to Paris, so I think I can save the rest of Porto for then with him. I wasn’t feeling sad, but this kind of travel was clearly not my purpose for this part of the trip. Braga is a city just north of Porto, 40 minutes by train, and I had read about its great expat community, arts scene and events. So rather than spend another day in Porto as a tourist, I decided to go see another possibly livable city on Sunday, to have a different experience and to change my perspective on the weekend.