The city of Oporto in northern Portugal lies on the banks of the Rio Douro (River Douro). It’s been a trading centre for centuries and is perhaps best known as the home of port wine, made from grapes that grow on the sunny slopes of the Douro Valley upriver. Central Oporto is perched on the steep northern bank of the Douro, while south of the river the port wine manufacturers, each with their production plant, warehouse and retail outlet, are clustered together within an easy walk of each other. We spent an afternoon checking out some of the visitor centres and sampling their wares; all very nice but no better or worse than South Australian ports.
Oporto escaped the devastating earthquake that destroyed much of Lisbon in the late 1700s. As a result, although Oporto is generally more grungy than Lisbon, its central civic and commercial buildings are older and grander than Lisbon’s. And its Sao Bento train station is special too; inside the entrance the walls are adorned with murals made up from 20,000 painted ceramic tiles. Oporto seemed to us to have a unique ambience; it felt good to be walking around and we got plenty of exercise making our way up and down the steep streets between the Douro riverbank and our hotel in Liberdade Square in the heart of the city .
On Friday we took a train inland, into the Douro Valley. The countryside was picturesque without being spectacular, and in places the terraced vineyards sprawled down the hill almost to the water. We left the train at the small town of Pinhao in the centre of Douro viticulture, and enjoyed a long lunch at a country style restaurant where we served up chunky roasted pork and potatoes in red wine, stewed pork neck with tomatoes, vegetables, bread, olives etc. It all came with a bottle of wine and several glasses of port (all Douro Valley of course) before, during and after the meal. It wasn’t hard to doze off on the two hour train journey back to Oporto.
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