Porto – a love story
When I was flying into Porto the timing was just right, The Douro river glittered like gold. Just as the namne indicates, douro means gold in Portuguese. Yes. I’ve visited Porto again. The city is amazing, I could not resist going back. I was there for 3 days, days that where full of activities and impressions. I stayed at a newly renovated apartment in an old neighbourhood so I got a glimpse of how life can be in Porto. Next door to my apartment was a marionette theatre and museum, too bad I did not have time for a visit. Just stepping out into the street let me experience the beauty of the city. There’s also a lot of climbing, maybe called walking, up and down the narrow streets in the city.
I’ve thought the way I travel and experience a place was a bit off, not in a way that a travel writer would do. Then I found a book by AA Gill and I realized that there are other travelers like me. I just head out and hear what the place has to say to me. We – maybe a bit presumptuous of me to group myself with AA Gill but reading his book about traveling felt so familiar to how I travel – also share the trait where our first fresh impressions of a place are most accurate. Just after a few short days, in a once foreign place, I’m set in my pattern and don’t discover as much anymore.
On my first morning in Porto I headed out to buy an hairbrush. Of course the hairbrush was just an excuse to go out and have a quest. It took me many hours, and detours, to find a hairbrush. I found it at the small supermarket next door to my apartment, but I had a lovely time in Porto looking for the hairbrush, met lots of helpful people, discovered great neighbourhoods, had a lovely lunch and a great time in general.
Porto is filled to the brim with amazing beautiful old buildings. Many of the buildings are quite close to falling down, they are in desperate need of renovations. Hopefully all the buildings will be restored, it would be a terrible loss to the world if they were taken down and replaced with modern buildings. I’ve never visited a place with such an intact old city centre, filled with so much character. Porto is probably the most beautiful city in the world in my eyes, I just hope the city stays that way. By most beautiful city, of course I mean it’s most appealing to me, Porto is a city that is the most “me”; it has colors, patterns, not too grand buildings, it’s next to a river and my favourite water – The Atlantic. That’s why Porto is the worlds most beautiful city to me.
The prints on my swimwear are inspired by Portuguese tiles, and would probably fit as tiles on a building in Porto.
Let’s just hope that the renovations of the building are done in a way that the people of Porto can afford to stay in the renovated buildings. Without local people in a city it’s not the same place.
All over the city you’ll find old churches and cathedrals. And, walking takes forever since there are new photo opps around every street corner you’ll turn. Since I’ve spent so much time in India it was a welcome, and most suitable sight to see rikshaw taxis driving along in the narrow and winding streets. Definitely more suitable than cars, even my Uber driver said she preferred not to drive in the city and that it was only her small electric car that worked. My Uber driver from the airport was a fountain of knowledge about Porto, and Portugal, in general. She also told me about Portuguese officials with Goan ancestry, so there is other ties to India besides the rickshaws. And, I felt more at home.
On a rainy morning I visited Centro Português de Fotografia where there, to my luck, was a Vivian Meier exhibition. I did not even know about the exhibition. I just thought I’d take a walk up the hill and have a look at the museum, and there she was displayed outside the museum. I very much enjoyed the exhibition and discovered sides of Vivian Meiers photography that are not highlighted in the media I’ve seen – her humorous side. The museum itself is set in a very old prison building, basically worth a visit by itself.
I went to a concert one night at Casa da Música with the blues band Tinariwen who originates from Sahara. Amazing. The concert feels even more amazing now, a couple of weeks later. The sound and acoustics in the hall was great, I love it when the music fills the auditorium without being loud. We in the audience very much got into the music, at the end people where dancing in the isles even if it was not allowed. The concert was so good that I – on the way back to my hotel, while the radio in the taxi played “Music was my first love” – bought a ticket for Tinariwens concert in Stockholm. And. It’s true. Music was my first love. Maybe second love, after water. I remember being 5 or 6, finally being allowed to be home alone for a while, blasting music as loud as I wanted dancing around in the house. Heaven.
Everything is connected, Tinariwen has made an album called “Water is life”, Aman Iman “Water Is Life” in Tamashek, which is the same name as I’ve given some of my photos.
An update about local transport in Porto: It’s bus 500 that is the most scenic bus route going through Porto and to Matosinhos. And now, happy news to us cash-less-tourists, you can tap your card on the buses so you don’t need a travel card or cash.
Other things i did: I continued my photo sessions with The Seagulls of Porto. Capital letters since they do dominate the city. I had a photo session when this seagull clearly wanted to be photographed, when being blocked from my camera by a passerby, the seagull moved so it was in focus again. Of course I obeyed and moved so I could take a better portrait.
I also visited the most well known Mc Donalds in Porto. The Mc Donald’s Imperial, chandeliers in the ceiling and an impressive eagle at the entrance. The eagle has very strong symbolic significance in Portugal it is a multifaceted symbol that represents independence, authority, nobility, and high-altitude vision.
Even if the Mc Donalds Imperial is considered the most beautiful, I prefer the one on Rua do Infante Dom Henrique, next to the river. It’s especially nice to sit outside on hot summer days. I actually thought this one was the famous Mc Donalds until my taxi driver, the fountain of knowledge, told me otherwise.
Porto right now must be one of the most photographed cities in the world. There where people everywhere taking photos. The photos they took where not selfies, or photos of their friends – the photos where of the city itself. Porto, a friend who told me beautiful stories.
Many of my city photos of Porto are taken in portrait mode because that’s how the city is. It’s narrow and you fit in just enough in portrait mode. If you do landscape mode there is too much in the photo to look at. In order to fit in the narrow passages you need to do portrait mode. Narrow alleys, and narrow houses. A bit similar to Amsterdam where the stairs in the buildings are so narrow that there are hooks at the top of the building so you can move the furniture into the apartments from the outside instead.
Since so much renovation is going on in the city a street that was walkable one day might be closed the next day. This happened during my short 4 nights stay. But then you just have to take an equally scenic detour. Another great thing to enjoy is the street art in Porto, it’s almost like an art exhibition in itself. Exactly like my photos of Porto are filled to the max with the city, I filled my days to the max enjoyed them to the fullest.
These images are either taken with my iPhone 16 Pro, or the smallest camera I’ve owned, and a couple of them are taken at the upstairs of bus 500, straight through the window. Still, the photos have a good sharpness in them. The smallest camera is Sony CyberShot DSC-RX100 VII with a zoom lens of 70-200 mm. I got it a few days before I traveled to Porto so I wasn’t familiar with all the menus and features. I decided to test the automatic mode, just adjust the ISO sometimes, I was most impressed by the results. The zoom works amazing, I never expected that such a small camera could have such a good zoom that saves the details while zooming in to max capacity. I love it. So smol, so good. Loved having a small camera in my bag that I could easily pick up, instead of lugging along a big and heavy camera. I could almost take good surf photos with it too. When photographing surfing the small view finder was very helpful so it has some of the functions of a more advanced camera. This is definitely a camera option for people who are dissatisfied with the capabilities of their mobile phone cameras but don’t want to bother with a fully professional camera. For a comparison you can check out my photos from my first stay when I used my Canon R6 for surfing and city scape photos. Lightroom, the editing software I’m using, is just getting better and better. Normally I only do basic editing but for one photo i used their AI and it really impressed me. First of all I wanted to remove a lamppost that hid a tram, the AI both recognized the lamppost and the shadow cast by the lamppost. Unfortunately, removing the lamppost and it’s shadow messed up the sign on the tram. Fortunately I could instruct Firefly AI, which is Adobes AI, to recreate the sign in the same font and on the same place as it originally was. Very helpful, very good. Thanks again, Adobe.
If you have any questions about visiting Porto, just comment below and I’ll try to answer. And, if you have friends who are curious about the city please share this post with them! Obrigada! Of course “obrigada” means “thank you” in Portuguese. And, that’s the phrase I know in most languages and the phrase I consider to be the most important in any language. The most important phrase in the world. Of course 😉
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