Port, Porto and the Douro

 Porto--Sunday morning and the sun is coming up, marking the end of our time in Porto, a city that has charmed us.  With its steep hills, antique tram cars, river, port wine, and wonderful architecture, some dating to the Middle Ages, some of it very modern, it seems to be the kind of place you'd like to live.   

We had a full tour from the sea anemone installation by the port in the fog, to the downtown of narrow streets, then on to the river for a trip on the Douro to time spent tasting port at Graham's with an excellent guide, Jorge, and then a lunch of a francesinha, or little French sandwich ,made with ham, roast pork and linguiça covered with cheese and gravy.  A fine time and a heavy lunch.

The tour took us to such various sites as the modern architecture built since Salazar's overthrow in 1974 with the Carnation Revolution, to becoming a European City of Culture twenty years ago, to today.  We stayed in the Pensata Riverside hotel built into to an old soap factory up river from downtown.  The food was at best adequate, certainly nothing to remark about any further, though the wines at both dinners were pleasant.  The hotel is very modern which, of course, means that sound reverberates against the hard surfaces and ceilings, making conversation difficult.  

The day's high points were numerous.   The port tasting certainly heads the list, but walking along the river and the boat trip were great fun.  Watching water jet skiers play with their machines (from what we can gather they are paid to perform) for over an hour as we munched lunch, particularly when the drivers or riders fell into the river, entertained us.

Much of the old city dates from the days of Prince Henry the Navigator, who was born here in 1394, and even Moorish and Roman times.  Old walls crop up from time to time, even though most of them were torn down in the 18th century for the city to expand.