Saturday, Jan. 28, 2023, Porto, Portugal – Natives of this hard-working northern Portuguese city have a saying that “While Lisbon plays, Porto works” – in reference to its nearby textile manufacturing and especially its 300-year-old history of exporting port wine. But from our brief 48-hour experience so far, it appears that Porto has become a major playground both for Portuguese, but especially for foreign tourist from around Europe, Asia and the Americas. Lisbon was a ghost town compared to Porto. I think that while Portugal seems to be the “it” destination right now globally, Porto is the “it” destination within Portugal. (We were sitting by two restaurateurs the other night at a Lisbon rooftop restaurant, and they were discussing how to appeal to tourists – it was fascinating. They said you have to get your restaurant mentioned in one of the many “top 10” listicles by the various travel publications, and especially Time Out.) Well, Porto is apparently topping many lists – we tourists are like lemmings. But happy lemmings. And we have managed to not go over the cliff yet. There are lots of cliffs in this city that straddles the Douro River, 1.5 hours downstream from the UNESCO World Heritage port vineyards.

We drove up here from Lisbon on Thursday, stopping by the ruins of an ancient Roman city called Conimbraga, and the university town of Coimbra, two hours north of Lisbon. It rained on us in Coimbra – literally out of the blue – and we saw the remains of a wonderful, atmospheric 1st C. AD cryptoporticus. The Romans, who loved an engineering challenge, tried to figure out how to put their central forum – which needs a flat surface – on the top of the hill town of Coimbra. Never shy to remake the landscape, they simply built an enormous substructure to support the forum. We wandered through its evocative arches, decorated with the occasion ancient bust, and were amused by the diligent museum staff, who would not let us leave until we had visited ALL parts of the museum. It was hilarious – we wanted to skip the mediocre 18th century paintings and the table ware and the terracotta statues, but NO. This one man, in particular, would spy us edging toward the door and he would say, NOW, you must see the 12th century reliquaries! And off we would go. Finally, we extricated ourselves – and yes, we did see the entire museum – and made our way over to the university, one of the oldest in Europe. We knew from our readings that it was also a university that banned the study of science that was blossoming during the Enlightenment – too threatening to the Catholic church’s orthodoxy – but we did visit an amazing library – 60,000 books in a spectacularly ornate hall – and the “university prison.” We don’t think you would get thrown in the clink for bad grades, but perhaps for getting into a brawl at the tavern and punching your professor. We aren’t sure, but were in a hurry to get back to our car for a hair-raising drive another hour north to Porto. It was hair-raising because the A1 had two lanes – super slow trucks dominated the right lane, while super speeding cars populated the left lane. It was worse than Greece. Rick would just get into the left lane to pass a truck and someone would scream up behind us and we would have to get back in the right lane. Rick said it wasn’t as bad for him driving as for me sitting helpless and freaking out in the passenger seat. Don’t worry Ma, we survived. 🙂

Finally Porto. It is a charming city, set on a hill overlooking the Douro River. On the south ban of the river is Gaia, where all the port wine cellars are located. We had a nice day Friday, when we toured the Palacio da Bolsa, which is not really a noble palace but a shrine built to commerce. The city’s merchants built the palace in the 19th century to house their various trade organizations – it is opulent, which inlaid floors, 1.5-ton chandeliers, and the best faux wood walls I have ever seen. The visit requires a guide, since the building is still the working office of the trade organization, though you can rent out any of the rooms for private events. The most-rented room – which goes for between $4,000 and $15,000 – is the last room we visited – with a Turkish theme, a gift from Queen Mary II. The guide seemed to take particular delight that the room had been rented for the first time last year to celebrate a divorce.

In the evening, we wanted to see the famous view of the city at sunset – best viewed from the south side of the river looking back at Porto, or from the Dom Luis I Bridge, which is shared by pedestrians and the modern light-rail. It turns out it wasn’t a very original idea – the bridge was packed with people snapping photos and selfies. We fit right in. The views were spectacular, and the mood was very festive. After walking to several restaurants we had read about – and been told there was no outside seating – we grabbed dinner at a random restaurant on one of the twisting streets on the steep hill rising up from the river. I am wary of any restaurant where they beckon you in, so I was heartened when the old woman who saw me looking at the menu just smiled and disappeared to the back of the restaurant. We asked to sit outside at one of two tiny tables with a small candle burning, and the waitress said, if you wish, but we won’t be able to seat you inside after, since they would fill up. It was supposed to get down into the 30s so she thought we were crazy, but it was only 44, and I am crazy, so we sat outside and had a wonderful meal of Portuguese seafood – shrimp, squid and octopus. Concept 31 – highly recommend.

Today, we started the day visiting the port lodges – of which there are many – where you can learn about the port-making process and have a port tasting. This is the sort of thing I had done many times in my life with my dad – though it was always whiskey. Poor Will was dragged to distillery tours all through Scotland and Ireland – but I think he would have liked this one. We chose the least-touristy lodge that had been founded in 1756 by our old friend Carvalho, the Marques of Pombal, the crafty and brilliant and slightly vindictive right-hand-man to King Jose I. He is best remembered as the man who rebuilt Lisbon after the devastating earthquake of 1755, but somehow, in all the chaos, he found time the next year to found this particular company as a way to recapture control over the export of port to England and increase the duties on the exports. The English owned most all the port business, so Carvalho stepped in and created what was the world’s first designated regions for a product – basically the first DOP. A port wine must come from the Douro valley, or it is just another fortified wine. We saw the huge barrels in which the port is aged, and visited a very cool room where old bottles are stored amid a ghastly amount of dust and mold and cobwebs – apparently it is good for the port. The oldest bottle – which the guide claimed was still drinkable – dated to 1765. We saw bottles from 1831, and 2013. We finished the tour with a tasting of four ports. We thought of our friend Jonathan, who passed away recently, and was the only person we knew served port. He was part English, a Baronet no less, but had terrible taste in port, and Rick had never quite gotten over an after-dinner port we had at his house one night. Well, we had a sip of 40-year-old port for him today.

We walked back over another bridge to a wonderful market near our hotel called the Balhao Market. It was recently reopened after a massive renovation – it is clean and bright and has everything from heirloom tomatoes the size of a bowling ball to fancy dried fruits and organic vegetables, fresh baked goods, charcuterie, cheeses and wines. However, the Portuenses did not go the way of the much-criticized but widely successful Time Out Market in Lisbon, which features tourist-friendly food-cart-like fare. This market had only a few places to buy sandwiches – restaurants are promised on a second level, but have not yet opened. We hope the market succeeds – it tried to preserve the traditional sellers of the old market, but it appeared that the only people visiting the new market were tourists unlikely to buy all the gorgeous produce.

Now we are regrouping for out last outing of the day – maybe a trip to the seaside, a 20-minute Uber ride away. We had hoped to take the old tram there, but I fear that it will be jammed with all the crowds we saw on the streets today. And tomorrow, we are back to Lisbon, via a few stops, perhaps at the world-famous surf town of Nazare, perhaps at a medieval monastery.