🇵🇹 2023 Summer Porto

Finally, I'm in Porto. First things first, I went to the hotel near Chapel of Souls to check in. I was very productive this afternoon. I started off at Chapel of Souls and took several nice photos, then I went to São Bento railway station and walked to Clérigos Tower. The tower is 75 meters tall, so you can see it almost from anywhere in Porto. I bought the combo ticket for Clérigos Tower and Serralvesa Gallery because I planned to go to the gallery the day after. The tower is a bit expensive and need to queue for entry, but the view up there is definitely worth it.

Palácio da Bolsa is not too far from the tower, so I decided to walk over to book the tour for tomorrow. On my way there, I felt like Porto's allies were somehow giving a Taiwan vibe. I walked to the river bank afterwards and as there was still daylight, I took the chance to go on the cruise tour on the Douro River. This is the biggest advantage of travelling in Europe during summer, the day is long and plenty of time to enjoy the city.

The Douro River is vital for Proto. Port wine, which Porto is famous for, relies on the river for transportation. Across the river is Gaia, where many wine cellars are located. To see the famous Porto city view, you actually need to go to Gaia to look over to Porto!

There are many restaurants on the riverbank. Adega São Nicolau, one of the restaurants on my list, is nearby, so I decided to give it a go. I waited for around half an hour (could be worse), and had a nice fried octopus rice with a glass of white wine, enjoying nice food with the sunset on the riverbank.

On the second day in Porto, I woke up early to go to Livraria Lello bookshop. Some people said it's the most beautiful bookshop in the world; some people said this place was. the inspiration for part of Harry Potter. I don't know whether these are truths or not, but one thing I can be sure of is that this is the most crowded bookshop in the world. You need to book a ticket (they called it a "book voucher") online to go to the bookshop. I decided to spend more money to get the skip the line ticket, so I didn't have to queue for ages (Glad I made this decision after seeing the queue at 9 am). The bookshop at 9 am was less busy, so I got a chance to take some nice photos. Is it worth it though? I've been to bookshops I like more, like Shakespeare and Company in Paris and Daunt's Book in London.

Palácio da Bolsa used to be the office of the Commerical Association and now it will be used to host formal events. At the entrance is the Hall of Nations, where you can see the ceiling decorated with national emblems of countries with which Portugal has business connections. Another highlight of Palácio da Bolsa is the Arabian Room, our tour guide told us that everything in the Arabian Room was perfect and symmetric, except that the front door was not aligned to the centre of the room because only God is completely perfect.

I signed up for a port wine tasting tour in the afternoon, so I headed over Gaia after Palácio da Bolsa. I tried Francesinha, the traditional Portuguese food, at Gaia. It is a sandwich, but very heavy with many layers of meat and chees. Personally, not my favourite. Now that my stomach is full, it's time for wine. The wine tasting tour I joined took us to three wine cellars to try nine glasses of port wine and a glass of table wine.

Port wine is wine fortified with spirit (for example brandy), so it's stronger than table wine. So how did people come up with this genius idea? It was said that the English found out that the wine they brought back was not as good because of all the time they spent on the sea, so they decided to change it. They added spirit to the barrel of wine, and voila - delicious port wine was made. Only the port wine made in Douro Valley with grapes from Douro Valley can be named and sold as Port wine (just like Champagne). After nine glasses of port wine and a glass of table wine, my night was so high and vibrant that I called an Uber back to the hotel directly.

On my second last day in Portugal, I spent half a day in Serralvesa. For people visiting Porto for more than two days or visited most of the places, I highly recommend this gallery. It has exhibitions of contemporary art and film production and a huge garden that you can spend the whole day in.

After taking the bus back to Porto city centre, I went to Porto Cathedral. I really like the blue and white tiles in Porto, they make the city so beautiful and unique, different from other cities.

I found a cafe on a stair near the Cathedral, which oversees the Douro River. I sat here had a cup of coffee, read my book and enjoyed the nice view in front of me. For dinner, I went to Tapabento recommended by my friend Alice. The restaurant is right next to Saõ Bento railway station. I came here before it opened and there was already a queue of hungry people waiting to get in. By the way, the fact that the restaurant's name has "bento" gave me the wrong impression that they sold Japanese bento. I had their seafood risotto, which was really good. Because I was on my own, the waiter put me on the bar seat. There were two Americans next to me, they tried so hard to chat with me and the couple on their left side. But honestly, I was so tired that I couldn't be bothered.

On my way back to the hotel, I felt my stomach rumbling. I used all the energy left in me to get back to the hotel and ensure no casualty. My stomach was fine the next day, my mum said it was because my poor stomach wasn't used to all the fancy food I had.

I spent my last few hours in Porto in Mercado do Bolhão. There were many seafood venders here. I saw sea urchins and oysters, but I didn't have any in case my stomach got funny again. I found a cute antique shop before I left and found many cute oldish tiles, I bought two for souvenirs.

That's the end of my Portugal trip! I love this country and I realised I love who I am like when I am travelling.

Obrigado, Portugal!