Love affair with Porto

I'm a Lisboa girl myself - give me the most spurious or flimsy of excuses to go there and it will rapidly become an urgent necessity - but re-acquainting myself with Portugal's second largest city, Porto, after many years of absence has turned my head.

This is the end point of the journey for the casks of port wine brought down along the Douro river for centuries, to be taken up by the big Port wine lodges for bottling and export. 

These views are all from the terrace of the Yeatman hotel with its fabulous location high up on the hillside of Vila Nova de Gaia. 

On this side of the Douro is the half of the city called Vila Nova de Gaia

On the other side of the river is the city of Porto itself 
(please don't call it Oporto, which is a linguistic misinterpretation originating with English speakers who misheard the definite article o ('the') as being part of the city's name!). 

The big port wine houses are all located on the Vila Nova de Gaia side. Fonseca, Ferreira, Graham's, Taylor's, Sandeman, Cockburn's, Ramos Pinto ...

Walking down the hill from the Yeatman terrace you negotiate narrow cobbled alleys that wind between the Port lodges ...

to the river, whose winding path we'd followed through the valleys and vineyards.

Looking across here to the colourful Ribeira, riverfront, of Porto on the other side, where Henry the Navigator, patron of explorers and discoverers, was born.

These are the old barcos rabelos, the surprisingly insubstantial looking (but sturdy enough to withstand rapids) flat-bottomed boats that transported the port along its river journey to this dockside at Vila Nova de Gaia - from the 13th century until as recently as 1964.

It's possible to swing through the sky to cross the river here, in dinky little cable cars, but we elected to walk across the Dom Luis bridge (in the very top photograph), a grand construction designed by M Gustave Eiffel shortly before he built the famous Paris tower.

Porto has undergone a massive urban renewal in the last 10-15 years, and this was new to me. I was struck by how well new modern centres and construction worked alongside Porto's historical architecture.

In the centre of the city is a grand railway station like no other: the São Bento station  with floor to ceiling tile (20 thousand tiles to be exact) murals showing scenes from Portuguese history - battles and conquests going back to the 11th century.

When it's time for a break, there's no better place than the Majestic Cafe, a landmark in the city and rated in the world's top 10 most beautiful cafes. The interior is all mirrors, cherubs, chandeliers, carved wood and leather chairs ...

and of course good coffee and pasteis de nata .

 There's more Art Nouveau at another unique institution in the city: the Livraria Lello, where visitors stop dead in amazement (and to whip out their cameras) at the entrance. Lello's interior is all stained glass, elaborately carved wood and copper, and an amazing spiral staircase (said to have inspired the Hogwarts staircase - JK Rowling lived close by here in pre-Potter days, teaching English).

The sheer numbers of people crowding into Lello on a summer's day made it difficult to take pictures that would do it justice, but see here (the most beautiful bookstore in the world) for much better pics taken minus crowds).

In total contrast, the modernist Casa da Musica concert hall designed by Dutch architect Rem Koolhaus looks like an angular white spaceship from the exterior, with cool glass and concrete interior spaces.

Dinner at DOP, one of chef Rui Paula's restaurants, totally lived up to its reputation for fantastic food and Douro wines, and came complete with a musical performance in the square, through the open doors. A perfect ending to the day.

Porto, Portugal June 2015
Day 6, Iberian road trip

Along the Douro

Are these the most beautiful vineyards in the world? 

This is the Douro (golden) valley, home of Port wine 

where vines grow in narrow terraces supported by hundreds of hand-built stone walls on vertiginous slopes 

dropping down to the Douro river that snakes through the valley.

Grapes have been grown and wine made here for more than two thousand years.

It became a protected appellation in 1756, making it one of the three oldest wine regions in the world, and ensuring that only port wine from this valley can be called Port.

Not a bad backdrop for this lonely fruit-seller on the winding road hugging the river.

We drove alongside the Douro where port wine was transported in boats all the way to the beautiful city of Porto.

Douro Valley, Portugal June 2015
Day 5 Iberian road trip

Dreaming in the trees in Portugal

... in Trás-os-Montes (Behind the Mountains), Portugal's most remote and isolated region, in the north-east just below the Spanish border, with an unusual and unique history.

Jewish families came here to hide from the horrors of the Inquisition, but long before that it was inhabited for centuries by Celtic people, like Galicia and Asturias in northern Spain.

Strange dialects and pagan rituals live on here. I much prefer these northern regions of Portugal to the heavily trafficked sunny southern Algarve.

And what could be better than a room in the trees? At Pedras Salgadas these eco-treehouses of wood and slate on delicate stilts are perfectly designed to disappear into the local forest.

This region is called the Terra Fria for its harsh winters, but it has ancient thermal hot springs (the nearest town, Chaves, was called Aquae Flaeviae by the Romans for the caldas that pour out of the earth here at 73°C) and these have been revived here.

We happened to coincide with one of those pagan festivals appropriated by the Catholic church. The Festa do São João, ostensibly a celebration of a patron-saint, still involves an archaic courtship-ritual custom of hitting the object of one's desire with garlic flowers or a plastic hammer in the course of some heavy partying and mandatory fireworks (see here), in a weird mishmash of traditions ...

but more importantly, involves the grilling of sardines on an outdoor fire on a midsummer night, with some rustic bread and vinho verde, a tradition (see here) from my childhood that made me inordinately happy

before heading back to my floating bed in the tree tops

Trás-os-Montes, Portugal  June 2015

Day 4, Iberian road trip

Camino by car

Driving west from San Sebastian and Bilbao along the curve of the Bay of Biscay - bay of shipwrecks and drowned sailors - following the incredibly beautiful Basque coastline of mountains and sea, through Cantabria and Asturias to Galicia,
we turn southwards to Santiago de Compostela ...

Santiago de Compostela: sidelong view from the main entrance of the Cathedral 

and voilà in just a day we've covered the Camino del Norte, one of the main pilgrimage routes of the Camino de Santiago. 

Puerta de Platerias, side entrance to cathedral. The front view is spectacular but was totally covered in scaffolding! 

There are many different routes, but all roads end in Santiago de Compostela, where legend has it the remains of the apostle James are buried. 

Though despite its appropriation by Christians, the pilgrimage was not a Christian invention; long before, pagans walked across northern Spain to Finisterre where they burned their clothes and watched the sun fall into the sea at the end of the world. 

Does it count if you do the Camino by car, could I still collect a certificate I wondered? 

Hostal dos Reis Catolicos, Praza do Obradoiro

The grand Hostal dos Reis Catolicos on the plaza next to the Cathedral is the ultimate luxury destination for weary pilgrims.

It's been here since the 1400s when it was built by monarchs Ferdinand and Isabel as a hospital where pilgrims could recover after completing the pilgrimage

and is now a state-run Parador with Gothic and gargoyled inner courtyards and monastic rooms with four-poster beds.

Santiago was teeming with weary and jolly pilgrims (hundreds of thousands do it annually - for which Paulo Coelho is generally blamed, with some reason)

but off the main routes there were empty tables waiting to be filled for dinner outside in the squares

quiet corners for contemplation

and good simple tapas for weary non-pilgrims

Santiago de Compostela, Spain, June 2015
Day 3, Iberian road trip