A stroll in o Porto!

When I talk about Porto in Portugal (the Portugueses call it "o Porto" - the port) , I like to think about the first time I arrived in the city.

It was 2012 and I was working in Lisbon, flying back and forth from Paris. I had decided to go on a weekend trip to Porto in October.

Departing very early from Lisbon, my train arrived on one of Porto’s main bridges crossing the Douro at the moment the sun was rising, illuminating the fortified banks of the city and the bridges rising above the Douro. I still remember that moment to this day. Little did I know that I would meet someone from this city a few months later that would make me fall in love with it even more.

Porto is so remarkable and different from other European cities, because it's as if powerful beings decided to cut a mountain in two to make way for the Douro river, but humans tried to keep the two sides connected by building bridges.

Of course, being a Porto native, my wife has walked many times around downtown and Gaia (the other side of the bridge) but rediscovered them with me. We've been here many times but always enjoy a stroll around the city. Therefore, we went again today.

On this sunny day in early October, the city of Porto is still full of tourists but no longer overcrowded. With a sunny 25C degrees, it was really nice to stroll around the city and enjoy the street music, food and discover new places, like a store that sells a collection of very colorful cans of sardines 😳

Later on, we will create a page with our ideal one or two days itinerary in Porto.

We also spent some time walking alongside the beach in Matosinhos, north of Porto watching sunbathers and surfers in the icy waters. There you'll find a wide and long sandy beach, very clean with only sparse bits of broken mussels. The sun and the smell of the ocean were delightful, and shared by numerous Porto inhabitants, even on this autumn day.