Porto, Portugal’s second city, is a relatively recent arrival on the list of Favoured European Travel Destinations. Over the past 20 years, it has made the leap from amateur status to the Premier League of tourist destinations, powered by double-digit annual growth rates of visitor numbers for over a decade. It now counts over 2.5 million tourists a year – more than established places on the European travel circuit such as Bruges, Seville, and Dubrovnik.
What are Porto’s charms? We went to investigate.
We Took a Journey Of Discovery Through The Streets Of Porto
Porto’s Great Leap Upward in the tourism league table is all the more astonishing since the city does not possess a Category A attraction: there is nothing world-famous there, no Eiffel Tower, no Colosseum, nothing that was crafted by the hands of a Michelangelo or some such.
Porto’s most famous site is a library that is said to have inspired the Harry Potter books, although nobody can say exactly what or how. (The argument can be summed up like this: J.K. Rowling lived in Porto for a year or so teaching English, she probably loves books, she must have visited the Lello Library.)
This lack of globally famous visitor attractions, however, can – as Porto has demonstrated – also be turned into an advantage: no urban fabric with a 1000-year-history also means that there is nothing which obliges you to read up on it, no set of works by a world-famous artist or architect also means no ubiquitous visual presence that constantly reprimands you for being unable to either decipher or enjoy the famous artist’s works.
On top of that, Portugal being a small country on the edge of Europe, you tend to feel less guilty knowing little about its history or the people who created it – such as Almeida Garrett, the guy who looks so longingly into the rising sun from his perch at Porto’s City Hall. (Who dat?)
Think about it: would your ignorance be as painless if this was Voltaire or John Milton?
Porto is also helped by the fact that it is hilly, which ensures that many great vistas suddenly open up when you have turned a street corner …
… and that it is generally easy on the eye.
No world-famous artists had a hand in the creation of the modern city, but the folks who did craft its urban fabric had a deft hand with decorative trimmings …
… and an eye for dramatic colour combinations.
Porto is a walking city: just by aimlessly wandering through the streets, you discover something interesting here …
… then something beautiful there – often in the unlikeliest of places.
Two areas in particular reward such journeys of discovery: one is the Ribeira riverside quarter near the landmark Dom Luis bridge across the Douro.
This is also the quarter where Porto is at its most touristy, but even here, you turn a corner and find yourself in the midst of true urban life. That is part of the city’s charm.
The second quarter where you can unearth real treasures is the old town around the Cathedral.
The streets in this part of town have benefited most from Porto’s tourist boom. Twenty years ago, as you can read in any account of the city’s recent history, these streets were considered lifeless and abandoned.
Now, they are filled with people, fancy shops and restaurants. In some places, a certain melancholy still lingers, but that only adds to the quarter’s charm.
There is, however, another ingredient to the success story of Porto, one that the official travel brochures are usually very quiet about: availability.
Flights to and from Porto can be found all through the year, not only during the summer months, and often at eye-catching prices.
For people in search of a quick getaway, particularly in the darkest season of the year, the city presents a tempting option. In other words: Porto is Exhibit A in another success story, that of Ryan Air. The Ireland-based “King of Discount Flights” is a much maligned airline, but the world would arguably be a poorer place without it.
In the age before RyanAir, airlines used to transport passengers to places where these passengers wanted to go. RyanAir inverted the entire logic of the industry, creating demand by offering additional supply, flying folks to almost anywhere in Europe.
Few destinations have benefited as much from this as Porto, thanks also to an ambitious, determined and forward-looking municipal government that seized the opportunity to leave other cities in southern Europe gasping in envy and admiration.
But Porto is not only pretty and easy on the eye: it is also interesting. If you pay attention, you will find fascinating overlaps between the Brave New World of a fancy tourism destination and its past as a scruffy harbour town.
This transition has been so fast that images of old Porto appear to linger on the retina …
… and can often be found just a block away from the shiny and new.
This is an experience that few if any other destinations can give you. Porto may not possess an Eiffel Tower or a Colosseum, but it is, after all, unique in its own way.
