[This article was first published in The Green Travel Guide]
I arrive to Porto by train, with no plan or itinerary, no agenda or checklist of places to visit. Not even a map. I will explore the old-fashioned way — on foot, no phone to help me navigate and if I get lost (improbable as I have no actual place I need to find) I can ask for directions, advice, suggestions on what to see and explore.
It is hard now to imagine, but that is how travel used to be, pre-smartphone. It was exploration, discovery and a personal experience rooted in real life connection. I have promised myself I will only talk in Portuguese even though undoubtedly English would be easier. English is all around me at the extraordinary azulejo-tiled train station — a happy group of American students sit chatting on giant suitcases on the concourse, sharing tales of European cities ticked off a checklist. Lots of people mill around, waiting to travel elsewhere. Japanese, Korean, English, Italian, Scandinavian. Old, young. Groups of students. A smartly-dressed elderly Portuguese couple with a small suitcase on wheels. A young couple with heavy rucksacks and dusty boots. A pack of teenage boys in football shirts, clearly excited to be running free for the day.
The newly-arrived spill off the train platform and into the cool, high-ceilinged arrivals hall. We stand open-mouthed, heads tilted upwards, taking in the 20,000 blue and white ceramic tiles that line the walls and extend up to the ceiling – all painted by hand by ceramics artist Jorge Colaço, over 11 years of painstaking work from 1905 -1916. Born in Tangier, Morocco, the son of a Portuguese diplomat, Colaço studied art in Paris, Madrid and Lisbon. The azulejos he paints tell the stories of Porto and Portugal — from the Infante Dom Henrique setting off into the Age of Discovery, to royal weddings (King João I’s wedding to Philippa of Lancaster, symbolising the alliance between Portugal and England), to battles (scenes of knights fighting at Valdevez), or rural peasant life depictions of oxen in the fields, harvests and life on the land. The one-time Benedictine convent, hence the name São Bento, is full of intentional Beaux-Arts elegance and that distinctive Portuguese soul.
Some people (local no doubt) rush by, but most new arrivals pause and let the startling beauty of the station sink in. A woman is washing the windows of the main doors, keeping a careful eye to her bucket of soapy water lest it get knocked over by the waves of arriving visitors as they spill down the stone steps outside into the heart of the city.
Porto immediately feels very different to Lisbon.
Whereas Lisbon is pastel-pretty, sunlit and confident – a cosmopolitan outwarding-looking city by the sea, Porto feels rawer, more inward-looking. It’s an unapologetic kind of a place with an energy to match. The hills are steeper, the roads narrower. Everything feels more weighted.
If Lisbon is the pretty cousin, Porto is the intelligent one — the thinker in the corner, soulful and real.
Known as ‘Ciudade Invicta’, the Unvanquished City, there’s a sense of pride, independence and resilience to Porto that gives it its own distinct identity.
Gulls circle overhead and here the soundscape is less global travellers swapping stories against the background of rattling trams, more church bells and neighbours calling out to each other, grannies stopping in the shade on steps to chat, a shoe-maker sitting on a chipped iron-work chair outside their workshop. It’s a place which still feels local — businesses are generally small-scale, local bakers, barbers, artisans. Things are being made here, not just shipped in on mass.
I smell pão quente (hot bread) from one of the tiny bakeries I pass by and I stop to buy some, trying out my Portuguese. Further down the hill, I spot a pastelaria and sit outside at a rickety table with um café, a thick inky espresso. On the table next to me sits an elderly man reading the newspaper. He nods in acknowledgement.
People here are reserved but kind and generous-hearted. I discover this as the day winds on. Each person I stop to talk with pauses and takes the time to be helpful, to explain slowly, often with enthusiasm.
I ask about buildings, architectural details on a doorway, where I can find the best views over the Douro, how the lady in the bakery makes her pastéis de nata (she takes me in behind the counter to watch as she layers cold butter into the dough to make these creamy custard tarts sprinkled with cinnamon). I ask some students for the best bookshops and bars by the river. A girl in a Velvet Underground t-shirt suggests Candelabro (a bookshop-bar) and Gato Vadio (for its garden, music events, readings and bookshop-bar vibe). Her friend chimes in with Casa da Horta for vegetarian food, board games, and a friendly place to practice my Portuguese. They are happy to share their city with a stranger.
I ask about Livraria Lello — considered one of the world’s most beautiful bookshops. They shrug. There’s a queue. You have to pay to go in. But is it so beautiful as they say I ask?
Despite their reservations I make my way over to the bookshop where a queue does indeed snake alongside the pavement downhill from the bookstore. Livraria Lello was set up in 1906 by the Lello brothers, and designed as a temple to literature, with a grand sweeping staircase, stained glass and Art Nouveau detailing, and it still serves as a cultural hub for the city.
It is this mix of high/low that strikes me most as I wander Porto’s streets. Walls covered in graffiti art contrast with elegant buildings, a reflection of the wealthy Port wine trade that shaped the city’s fortunes from the 17th century on. On one side of the river that cuts through the city, sits working-class Ribiera full of cafés, bars, young people clustered outside tascas sipping beer from plastic cups, and where you’ll hear fado late at night. On the opposite side sits Gaia – home to the port lodges and wine aging cellars of families like Sandeman, Taylor and Graham who built fortunes from the Port trade.
To cross from one side to the other, I walk along the impressive Dom Luís I Bridge, and see the old rabelo boats that carry barrels of wine from the steep vineyards of the Douro Valley down to Gaia.
This side of the river feels smarter, more monied, and again cafés line outdoor terraces river-side. Lots of families and couples stroll by the waterside as the river starts to glow gold at sunset. At Sandeman’s port cellars (set up in 1790 by George Sandeman, then a young Scotsman with a bright idea, a £300 loan and nous for branding), I discover a music stage set up for the evening, and stalls serving petiscos (small bites) and cocktails.
As the sun dips in the sky, the music starts with DJs playing. It’s a free, joy-filled evening. Light spills from the old port lodges, reflecting off the glassy water. Across the river, church towers are lit like blinking lanterns. A mix of travellers, digital nomads and locals make up the mellow crowd, some sitting by the water’s edge, sipping vinho verde, watching the boats bobbing lightly as if dancing to the bossa nova and the funk beats. Portuguese actor, Nuno Lopes (Boxer in Netflix’s White Lines) leads the headline set as the crowd sways in time.
Later, when I grab a taxi, the driver asks me why I’m so sad. His question takes me aback. I’m not sad, I tell him. I’m happy. The city makes me happy. I am simply sad to be leaving. He looks at me for a moment, then nods in recognition. Saudade, he says.
That most Portuguese of sentiments, a longing for something lost or distant, a sense of nostalgia for what could be. As I leave Porto, I feel that bittersweet weight tug gently at my heart. Saudade.
Laura McVeigh is a Northern Irish bestselling fiction author and travel writer. She has authored books for Lonely Planet and DK Travel (Penguin Random House), bylines in Irish Times and Irish Independent, and her work is featured by the BBC, Newsweek & many more. She writes on Substack about the art of storytelling, travel writing and green travel.