A Weekend in Porto

Porto was on my list to visit for a long time. I was really longing to get away to a southern city with good food and some history. I was gonna travel with a girlfriend, but she decided to cancel on me in the last minute. Luckily one of my guy friends stepped in and joined me on this trip to Porto. We took an early flight on a rainy Saturday morning from London to Porto. It was quick and easy to reach Porto. The weather in Porto was not much better than the weather was in London. It was grey and rainy. We stayed at the Inter-Continental in the center of the town. It was a very beautiful hotel. The location was excellent. We dropped our stuff and we went for lunch. The food was excellent. My friend had the grilled octopus and I had the cod, because I wanted to have something typical Portugese. As you can see the food was very nicely presented and everything was very delicious.

After lunch, we went sightseeing. Porto was a bit ran down but I loved the portugese architecture with the colorful buildings.

We visited the railway station and the churches with the blue tiles. They were beautiful.

We enjoyed walking around the city. The city is split into two by the river in the middle. We walked across the bridge and crossed from one side to the other. The view from the bridge was spectacular. We could see both sides of the city. I took some photos once we crossed the bridge. You can see the city behind me.

Once we crossed the bridge, we visited some of the port cellars. We decided to take a tour in the oldest one. It was called Ferreirinha. It was named after the family who started the business.

Porto must have about 20 or more port cellars. we tried a couple of different ports. I really liked the white port. We could also see the little boats on the river that they have been using for the past hundred or so years to transport port between England and Portugal. England is the biggest port consumer so most of the port gets exported there.

Next morning we had breakfast on the main square in Porto in a very old and traditional restaurant. Then we did some more sightseeing, saw more of the blue tiled churches.

Climb up to the top of the tallest church in the city center. It was a good a exercise for me. It was raining all day, so we did not want to walk around too much in the rain. After lunch we headed back to the airport and hang out there until the plane took off. It was a nice and rainy weekend in Porto. It was great to get out to experience a bit of culture, good food and port.