Sunday 1st September 2019
As you read this I’m drinking Port in Porto in Portugal, which has a wonderful triple symmetry unmatched in the world. The closest I have got to that previously is to drink a beer in Beer, but that’s in Devon and not in a fantasy county called Beershire. Close, but no cigar.
Me Julie and I are here for a few days to enjoy some September sunshine, eat fish and drink Port. Except Julie is on a medicine which precludes her from imbibing, so I’m drinking her share of the Offley Tawney that I just got from the Froiz supermarket over the road.
We were wafted here from the paradise that is Luton Airport by EasyJet, ninety minutes late because the French air traffic control system has gone tits-up. I expect some farmer ploughed up the fibre network in a fit of pique because he lost his cheese subsidy or something.
Porto has a very nice airport and a very nice metro system which look us to the very nice Trindade station. Sorry I’m tired and I just ran out of adjectives other than nice. We bought a three day unlimited ticket for buses and the metro for 15€, so we wouldn’t have to keep buying tickets, which is also nice.
Our AirBnB is very close to the station and our host is a stylish lady called Mariana who has a perfect bob haircut and a good list of local restaurants.
The flat is very spacious, with wooden floors and stone walls and a minimum of decoration. It is close to good places to eat and Mariana recommended Cervejara Brasao. It was a few minutes walk away and there were already people queuing to get in when we arrived. The waiters are young and dressed in dungarees, the decor is dark wood and the atmosphere is lively.
I ordered the “mixed grilled meat” and Julie ordered the Francesinha. I got a huge dish of pieces of steak and frankfurters in a spicy gravy with grilled cheese on top. Weird, but tasty and there was plenty of it. Julie got a steak and ham sandwich which was covered in cheese and grilled, served in a beer and tomato sauce with a fried egg on top. It really was a mutant meal that you might expect to get in a diner in Louisiana to feed hungry truck drivers. She had a half portion, which was massive, a full one would could have been fatal, definitely a heart attack on a plate.
We came out having been well fed, but our palates were not titillated. The local beer, Superbock, ain’t very super, and came in a big ceramic mug without a handle. The food was quality rather than quality, but definitely different.
On our way home stopped at a supermarket on the way home and I bought the Offley Port for my digestif/pudding. It was excellent Port, but then again I like all Port, I’m a not fussy drinker.
Why (you may ask) is the title to this post Oh Porto. In England we used to call the city Oporto rather than Porto. That’s because o Porto means “the port” in Portuguese. Its similar origin to the name of the city of Bombay (which was a Portuguese colony) – it simply means good harbour.
Monday 2nd September
On our first full day in Porto, we got the the 500 bus from Sao Bento station to the seaside at Matosinhos, a suburb with a commercial dock and the best beach in the area. After a leisurely coffee at a beachside cafe, I went for a swim in the Atlantic. The sea was busy with teenagers in wetsuits learning to surf, I just had my covering of natural lard to keep me warm – and it was not effective. While maintaining a calm appearance, inside I was screaming “it’s really jolly cold and unpleasant”. I maintained a stiff upper lip (and shrivelled gonads) and swam around for a couple of minutes before emerging from the freezing waters like Daniel Craig in Golden Eye (except for the buff body).
A couple of hundred metres from the beach is a large Lidl, so we bought some portable comestibles and found a shady tree. The temperature was over thirty degrees, and even the mad dogs were in the shade.
The 500 bus took us back to the city centre, and we met up with a group of people for a walking tour of Porto with Carlotta. She is a late twenty -something history graduate, who knows everything about her home town. The walk was all within the confines of the old city walls which have now gone, except for a few remnants. Below the Gothic cathedral (the Se) there are narrow medieval streets which are gradually being improved and gentrified. But there is still washing hanging from upper stories and even a big paddling pool in the street for hot neighbourhood kids!
There are also lots of pigeons, and one pooped on my shoulder, which must be good luck. I wiped it up with a tissue, and an American lady cleaned my shirt with a detergent pen she had in her bag! Bugger me Americans are clever.
The streets are steep and picturesque, and bear the names of the craftsmen and merchants that lived there, such as the belt-makers. At the bottom of the hill is the riverside district of Ribeira, which was once home to the busy trading quays of the city. It was from here that Henry the Navigator set off in 1415 to sail to west Africa. Ribeira is now the touristic heart of the city, with bars and restaurants lining the riverside next to the Douro.
Ribeira Square has a peculiar statue of Saint John, known locally as the Lego Saint.
Dominating the view is the Pont Luis bridge, a massive two level structure designed by a student of Eiffel (who built the Pont do Infante to the east).
We progressed uphill to see more historical sites, and the day got hotter and we all got more tired. By the end of the tour in Praca da Liberdade we were hot and tired and ready for a visit to “the most beautiful McDonalds in the world”. It used to be a posh cafe, and all the lovely Art Deco decoration had been kept. I had a delicious ice-cream sundae and Julie had a Sprite, we were properly chilled. I don’t go in fast food places often, so I still think of them as a treat, just like a kid!
The last stop on the tour was Sao Bento railway station, which our guide alleged was “the most beautiful railway station in the world”. In actuality it is a very ordinary station with an entrance hall with beautiful tiles on the wall.
In the evening we returned to Ribeira and visited the Bacalhau restaurant for some bacalhau. It is salted cod, the Portuguese national dish and a ubiquitous favourite. Julie has a sort of cod risotto, and I had cod on a bed of potatoes, onion and egg. it was all very delicious, especially accompanied by a glass Vinho Verde.
After dinner we sat outside a bar by the river and watched people pass by in the warm night air. There’s no better entertainment than watching the variety of humanity and saying rude things about them (quietly of course).
Tuesday 3rd September
On our second full day we decided not to exert ourselves much, and keep out of the sun. So we got the Metro to Gaia on the other side of the Douro river to see how Port wine is made.Gaia is home to all the major Port producers, and they all offer tours of their facilities. After much discussion we decided on Taylors, and walked up a steep narrow street to their three hundred year old warehouses which are . The company was founded in 1692 by Job Bearsley, but is was his son which discovered the full bodied powerful wines of the Douro Valley to the east of Porto beyond the mountains. The weather there is hotter and drier, ideal for making wine with high sugar content. But Gaia, by the sea, is cooler and better for the long term storage and maturation of the wine. The casks (about 600 litres) and vats (thousands of litres) are made of oak and are kept in granite walled warehouses called lodges, which are always cool.
The Port wine trade developed more rapidly when the French government of Louis XIV banned the export of wine to Britain, so we got our booze from Porto instead, Hop Off You Frogs!
At Taylor’s we paid €15 for the tour, but it was really good. They provided an audio thingummy where you press a number on the keypad and listen to a description of the the room you are in. There were also very good displays and videos to watch in different rooms.
I am now a complete expert in Port, go on ask me a question. Go on, go on, go on, go on (as Mrs Doyle would have said in Father Ted). At the end of the tour there is a lovely garden to sit and eat over-price bread and olives. There are also some perambulating peacocks and cockerels. I was eating some bread and a cock stole some bread out of my hand, greedy cock!
Walking down to the Gaia riverside we found a big indoor market with many stalls selling food and drink. I bought a “tasting plank” of four different beers, all quite tasty and better than the standard Superbock which appears to be the only beer available in most of Porto.
After lunch we lazily took the water taxi over the river to visit the church of St Francis. Our guide on the walk had said it was an unmissable spectacle with 400kg of gold leaf covering the interior. But I think they have been ripped off by the decorator. The interior was very ornate Baroque, every inch was gilded carved wood, but it looked shabby and dusty and was very disappointing compared to cathedrals and places I have seen in Spain. The catacombs were equally dull, unless you like carvings of saints and silver cups. I did quite like the statue of St Francis who looked like he was trying to rob a bank without a gun.
So after that minor let-down we got the bus back to the flat, had a shower and then got the metro to Matosinhos on the coast. It is famous for its fish restaurants in Rua Herois de Franca, foodies visit from many miles around. Because we are “careful with our money” we looked at the menus, saw that the fish was fifty Euros a kilo, and felt a bit faint. So we retreated to a side street and found O Lemo, a modest place much more fitting to our slender wallet. The mixed grilled fish (twenty two euros for two) was boney but tasty. It’s surprising how much meat there is on a large fish head.
Wednesday 4th August
On Wednesday we got back on the 500 bus to Foz da Douro, a very pretty suburb at the point where the Douro river reaches the sea. It is small but moving up-market, as evidenced by the number of estate agents and an expensive whole foods store (like you get in Richmond). There are some lovely rocky and sandy beaches, we stopped at Praia dos Ingleses (English Beach) and sat of a big rock to watch the sea and people testing the water (but not going in).
Walking away from the beach we stopped briefly at the Foz Mercado, which will be nice when the building work is finished. The 204 bus took us back into the city to the Boa Vista district to visit the Mercado Bom Successor, a huge concrete market that has been turned into a foodie centre with many different food and drink stalls. It’s a beautiful light airy building, with a great choice of different food styles. Today (as Jessie from the Fast Show would say) we will mostly be eating suckling pig. The pork came in a roll with a bag of crisps on the side and a glass of beer. Boy oh boy was it tasty! Sorry vegetarians, but meat does taste good.
Tummy’s full, we got on yet another bus to Serralves, a modern art museum set in a beautiful park. We couldn’t just get a ticket for the park, so paid 12€ to see the modern art. It was mostly dull (my middle name is Philistine) apart from an installation with opposing mirrors which gave a clever repeating image effect. But the park is very lovely, and in it sits the Casa Serralves a stunning pink Art Deco building that houses a museum of Portuguese cinema.
Another bus took us through rush-hour traffic to the Baixa district, which is very touristy, where we found a cheap (ish) restaurant for a simple dinner. A slightly annoying habit in restaurants is to casually plonk baskets of bread and olives and other starters next to you as you sit down. These are not complimentary, and appear on the bill at the end. They are betting on you being famished when you arrive, and grabbing at the nearest food!
Worth a visit?
Porto is a beautiful city, which is small enough to walk round if you want to. There is plenty to see for three or four days, and its only about two hours flying from London. The food is not as good as French or Italian, but better than Stockholm. If you like fish there is a huge choice.
The transport system is excellent, and we made really good use of our three day travel card on the Metro and buses. I particularly enjoyed visiting Taylors and Foz da Douro. The beer is reasonably priced, but Superbock is like Fosters or Carling, not great. The Port is delicious, but then again I’m biased.
Porto is one of the cities I would like to visit again, you should go!
timharnesstravels 