A Brief Introduction To Porto

After our stay in Stratford Upon Avon, we found ourselves with 10 days to waste away before returning to our London flat, and so parted with a very overladen Croissant and boarded an Easyjet flight to Porto in Portugal. 

Porto is a wonderful place, still extremely rough around the edges, and full of mostly locals rather than tourists. Many menus, flyers, and signs are in Portuguese only, but with a little effort in the local language, the people of Porto are ridiculously friendly, especially with a toddler in tow.

There are apparently roads in Porto that are steeper than those of San Francisco, and after dragging 2 suitcases, a backpack and a push-chair from the tram stop to the hotel in blazing heat and along the cobbled streets, we soon realised this wasn’t going to be the peaceful, stress-free break we thought it would be.

Portugal is clearly in recession. Many of it’s shops are closed down, and urban decay is around each and every corner. Graffiti is rife in Porto too, adding to its incredibly run down look. 

But it does hold a certain charm. As wooden doors and windows flake and rot in the relentless sun, life goes on. Cafés buzz, there are trendy arts in every second store, and there are small businesses squeezed into the tightest corners of the city churning out a whole gamut of goodies. 

A deep ravine cuts its way through the centre, bridged by superstructures designed by amongst others Gustave Eiffel. An ancient tram system with vintage stock rattles its way through the tiny filthy streets, ringing it’s bell constantly at illegally parked cars blocking the rails. Porto is home to possible the worlds most beautiful bookstore, with a staircase like I've never seen before, and many of it's buildings are covered with stunning ceramic tiles.

By pure luck, we were there during the São João (Saint John) festival, whereby quite literally the whole of Porto parties in the streets. Locals release fire fuelled lanterns up high into the sky and spend the evening hitting each other over the head with large plastic mallets.

We loved it!

However, our brief introduction to this town was abruptly ruined, with a very blunt email from our estate agent back in London, telling us that ultimately we would not be moving back home any time soon.