One month in Porto — Letters from the Road

Following their generous invitation, I'm now spending some time at my friends' house in Porto, the second largest city in Portugal. I've been here before, many years ago, but never for a whole month. Walking around, exploring old alleys or strolling alongside the river Douro, some old songs pop up in my head, especially those by Rui Veloso, a local bluesman. "No meio da neblina / Por ruelas e calçadas / Da Ribeira até à Foz / Por pedras sujas e gastas / E lampiões tristes e sós" ("Amidst the fog / Through alleys and sidewalks / From Ribeira to Foz / On dirty and worn stones / And sad and lonely street lamps").

Despite the many days of rain, I have visited (or revisited) quite a few museums and historical places. The Museu Soares dos Reis has a good collection of Portuguese paintings and sculptures from the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries. The São Bento train station is remarkably decorated with murals made of hand-painted tiles. The Museu do Carro Eléctrico displays a large collection of trolley cars from the 19th century to today (yes, there are still trolleys operating in Porto). The Museu Romântico is not as large as the one in Madrid but has a very interesting 19th century collection of objects from nature, inspired in the scientific work of Alexander von Humboldt. The Centro Português de Fotografia is a photo museum hosted in a building that had been a prison since the 18th century and only deactivated after the Carnation Revolution in 1974. The Palácio da Bolsa (Stock Exchange Palace), built in the 19th century, is a beautiful example of Palladian architecture with exceptional interiors.

And then there are all the churches: Sé do Porto (Romanesque, 12th century), Igreja e Torre dos Clérigos (Baroque, 18th century), Igreja Paroquial de Santo Ildefonso (Baroque, 18th century), Igreja do Carmo (Rococo, 18th century), and several others.

What about the food?

The traditional Porto sandwich is called francesinha (in Portuguese, it means "the little french one") and is made with toasted bread, roast beef, ham, sausage, covered by cheese and a fried egg, and served with a sauce of tomato and beer. I had a few of those.

I also had other typical Portuguese dishes, like carne de porco à alentejana (fried pork with clams and lots of cilantro) and bacalhau à Brás (shreds of salted cod mixed together with thinly chopped fried potatoes and scrambled eggs). But the best meal I had in Porto (twice) was the fantastic arroz de tamboril (monkfish risotto) from Marisqueira do Porto.

All of the above, of course, consumed with generous amounts of Douro, the local red wine. Burmester, Duas Quintas, Sublinhado Kopke, Esteva, Quinta do Bucheiro, and several others.

Next destination?

This weekend I will move to Bali, in Indonesia. But that, as you know, is a story for later. Selamat malam! (That's "good night" in Balinese.)