We spent Saturday visiting Porto (or Oporto as it is also called). It’s a beautiful city and only about an hour from the marina here as there is a metro that connects the towns around the Porto area. We left the boat about 8.00am and caught the metro to arrive in Porto about 9.30am. The city stretches along the steep banks of the Douro River and the walk from the station to the river is down through old stone buildings, some quite dilapidated, often with tiled areas depicting local/historical scenes. The ambiance is relaxed even for a very touristy place. We bought a couple of Portuguese handmade small bowls to serve snacks, had a coffee by a square where the local fire brigade were exhibiting old fire fighting vehicles and enjoyed the wander through the streets down to the river itself. There cannot be many more attractive towns, the river is wide and slow, an impressive iron bridge crosses the deep valley, the old houses on the north bank contrast with the numerous port warehouses on the south side. We had a very nice sandwich in a cafe positioned at the side of the bridge with a spectacular view down river (and still not really expensive) and then walked around to find a port warehouse to visit. As on the last visit Jeff, Sandra and Chris had made, many were closed. It is probably not worth looking for a tour around lunchtime as most seem to close, they start again about 2.00pm and we selected Cockburns. The tour was good with lots of facts about port and its production eg.
- The grapes are grown and turned to wine well inland up the Douro Valley where the heat is greater
- The high sugar content of Port is achieved by adding strong alcohol which kills off the fermentation before using all the sugars – hence ’fortified wine’
- The wines are stored for at least 2 years and up to 130 years (that gets expensive –more than E5,000 a bottle)
As normal there is a tasting after the tour and we seriously studied six Red and Tawny Ports and made a couple of purchases for later study! We walked back across the higher level of the bridge to partly miss the very steep climb back through the city.
The Metro back was efficient but came with a warning to watch your valuables. As we were validating our tickets at the platform entrance, there was an elderly woman standing there. She followed us on to the platform as the train came in and, on entering the carriage was hustling up behind Chris to the extent he felt something was odd. A second later he realised her hand was in his pocket trying to reach his wallet. On being confronted she mouthed off in Portuguese, presumably accusing him of something, retreated to the other end of the carriage and got off at the next stop. The wallet was actually in an inner zipped pocket and she wouldn’t have been able to access that. Other people on the train witnessed this and commented that you do have to be very careful on trains here.

We spent Sunday relaxing and doing bits on the boat. The wind was milder but the forecasts still make this a week that is likely to be spent in port.

Picture shows the Douro River through Porto from high on the bridge on the south bank