Porto or Oporto is known as the second city of Portugal, after Lisbon. It has a much different culture and pace than the capital. Lisbon is probably the most relaxed capital of Europe I've been to, but Porto sort of has a more business type atmosphere. Indeed people joke often that in Portugal, Porto works, Braga, a religious centre, prays, Coimbra, home of the University of Coimbra studies, and Lisbon takes all the money! Porto is still in Portugal however, so people are still as friendly and relaxed as can be, just with a tiny bit more bruskness than Lisbon.





The port area of Porto along the Douro river is magnificent. Beyond magnificent even-- transcendent, awesome, awe-inspiring, all of these. I was really blown away by how wonderful it was just to walk around the historic part of town.

My wife says the one she took with her iPhone is better... What do you think?

One of the great things you can see in Porto, is the Cathedral, a Romanesque building built in the 1100s, with a later, beautiful Gothic cloister added. Check it out on my post, live on April 21st 2015!

Around the port area is the older neighborhoods, which are great to walk through!

Porto is right on the mouth of the Douro river, and is an important shipping hub.

Near the river is the St. Francis Monument church and the Bolsa Palace.





Also, you could fall into the water and suffer an acute form of wet-lung.

You can travel back up Porto's steep hill on the Funicular dos Guindais and see a quite beautiful view of the Ponte Dom Luis:



It get's a little dizzying after so much Port though!

We were in Porto over Christmas, when the Porto-guese like to do marathons.

They seem quite health conscious in Porto.

The city centre is extremely beautiful looking down from by the Clerigo's tower.

The Sao Bento train station in Porto is famous for having the fewest number of Azulejos, or Portuguese tiles, of all the train stations in Portugal.

This tile depicts Queen Angela Merkel coming to Portugal to demand more austerity measures.

Still there are some anti-Merkel austerity politics going on:

There are some beautiful city parks in Porto, this one near the town hall:

Here is the Jardin do Palacio de Cristal- I'm not sure what they are for... The only reason we were there was because my sister, Noodle Magnusdottir had too much Douro wine, saw the sign for Crystals, screamed, "I LOVE SVAROVSKI!" and scaled the wall. It took four of us to take her down and drag her out of the gardens.

There are a lot of buildings in Porto they are renovating.

We were there in Christmas so they had some winter attractions in the city centre.

Here you can see the Canadian guy drinking directly from the bottle...

Well, I hope you consider visiting Porto! It's a place of love!

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Sauce

The old town has some beautiful old buildings that are quickly being renovated and purchased.There are also nice hills since it's built in the Douro river valley.I always dreamt of having a European balcony...There are clean, quaint neighborhoods that lead down to the Duoro.The San Francisco church has a famous family tree of Jesse (Jesse was the father of King David in the bible).The neighborhood around there is quite quaint, though the church is not special to see.It is right near the Douro river, and is a nice spot for lunch or dinner.Afterwards you can walk to the other side of the town to have some Port in one of the Porto's fortified wine distilleries!Port is a fortified wine, which means that alcohol is added to make it stronger.For port they add the extra alcohol during the fermentation process, which kills the yeast, leaving a lot of sugar and keeping the wine very sweet.Port is a protected designation of origin in the EU, so is only made in the Douro river valley. In the US they will permit imitations to label themselves as Port however.Walmart-brand Port is the most common Port in the US, made in China, sweetened with lead acetate.It's easy to get a little lost after too much Port, so be careful!The British especially love sweet wines -- in 1799, the British imported an average of 5 bottles of Port per man, woman and child!They even had Gentleman's clubs in which the membership trial consisted of drinking three bottles of Port in one sitting!I don't recommend trying this, due to the high risk of diabetes.So try a relaxed Port-tasting, and buy a couple bottles to bring back home to your Grandma-ma!I recommend checking out road race times before you go-- there were two while we were there!You can read about the Clerigo's tower on my post to be published April 14th, 2015! The marathon had created some crazy traffic...But it made it quite beautiful!I kind of like the out of focus one!This is St. Anthony's church:Like everything in Portugal, it has to have some tiles!The tiles depict various scenes of Portuguese history:This is the Sao Bento train station in Portugal, named after the saint who brought Japanese cuisine to Oporto. The Portuguese leader, dressed as a Moor for Carnival, relents to Empress Merkel:There are some other tiles celebrating the EU agricultural subsidies that Empress Merkel brought:Many of the old buildings are being re-furbished, for hardcore British ex-pat Port enthusiasts.Here is one of the refurbished buildings, with a modern facade added.It's fun to watch people who've never skated before learn.They also had some wild rides.Here's a Canadian!And some real-life winter sledding!Here is the great, "Pene do Porto."