Image courtesy of João Ferrand
Porto may still lag far behind the capital Lisboa in popularity, but visitor numbers have risen sharply in recent years. Yet while the queues for the world's most famous bookshop, Livraria Lello with its bright red staircase, grow year after year, we would like to take you along the less beaten paths.
Our travel tips are just like our wine choices: we rarely find what we're looking for in the busiest places. On the margins, however, we find our way blindfolded to the most exciting discoveries. So this is the story of our Portugal, our Porto, our country on the Atlantic Ocean, but we trust that you too will lose your heart to it.
From Serralves via Foz to Matosinhos
We begin this visit to Porto in the suburbs, west of the city. In a side street off the broad Avenida da Boavista you'll find the Fundação Serralves.
Serralves is the umbrella name for a large park, a museum of contemporary art, an arthouse cinema and a beautiful Art Deco villa. Even if you're not a big fan of contemporary art, this place is worth a visit. You can easily stroll through the park for a few hours, admiring gardens and architecture in turn.
The gardens and the Art Deco villa were originally intended as a private country residence, built in the early 20th century. The Portuguese state later added a museum of contemporary art, and the gardens were enriched with numerous art installations.
The museum building was designed by one of Portugal's most celebrated architects, Álvaro Siza. Among other things, the beautiful tidal pools in Leça da Palmeira, near Porto's harbour area, are his design. He also created the Japanese-inspired Casa de Chá da Boa Nova where chef Rui Paula now cooks at two-star level. Besides the sheer beauty of this former tea house on the edge of the ocean, chef Rui's story is infectious too, and we can tell it first-hand.
at Casa de Chá you become one with the ocean
Back when there was nothing at all, when the first river cruise on the Douro had yet to be built, Rui opened his restaurant DOC in the heart of the wine region, on a quiet bank of the Douro. The timing was perfect: today's top winemakers - Niepoort, Wine & Soul, Poeira, Vale Meão, ... - had just bottled their first wines, and Rui provided a lovely place to taste them with his dishes. It became only natural for winemakers and merchants to sit down together at Rui's table.
He then opened in the centre of Porto DOP and a little later he could give free rein to his creativity at Casa de Chá. So wherever you are in Porto or the Douro, Rui Paula can brighten your day.
But back to Serralves for a moment. If you turn left when leaving the museum onto the Avenida do Mal. Gomes da Costa with its stately houses, you are within walking distance of Foz Velha, the old part of Foz with its atmospheric narrow streets. A pleasant stop along the way is the Mercado da Foz do Douro.
The name 'Foz' refers to the mouth of the Douro, which flows into the ocean here. That makes for a spectacle in any weather. In wind and storm, the waves crash high and loud against the piers. In fine weather, you can't get a seat quickly enough on the terrace of Praia da Luz. Here you have a front-row seat to enjoy the sun and the ocean.
The wide esplanade of Foz, stretching north along the coast, is also the ideal place to tick off your Strava session while on holiday. The recreational jogger can log about five kilometres from the lighthouse at the mouth of the Douro, running past the somewhat bizarre Edifício Transparente and looping through the city park to the rotunda da Anémona. The highlight is the captivating artwork 'She Changes' by Janet Echelman which sways with the wind above the roundabout.
The large web of rope is reminiscent of both a fishing net and an anemone. In that way it captures precisely the essence of the Portuguese soul, which is shaped entirely by the ocean. This is not a Mediterranean country; this is not a people with a Mediterranean lifestyle; these are Atlánticos!
While the satisfied jogger hops into an Uber back to the hotel, the ambitious runner can climb through the city park up the Avenida da Boavista with its beautiful modernist villas, all the way to the Casa da Música . From there it's downhill, via the Jardim Botânico and the Parque da Pasteleira, until you come out in Foz again. Your Strava will then show 12 km. More about Casa da Música later.
Now it's time for a good espresso with homemade pastry, and that's exactly what Tavi, Confeitaria da Foz offers you. The ocean view comes free. Since 1935 this has been the place for excellent coffee, delicious scones and the whole range of Portuguese sweets. The Portuguese culture of a sweet breakfast is, for us, one of the country's great assets. Is it a coincidence that the inventors of all those sweets also had a considerable influence on winemaking? Later more on the role of the Cistercian monks in developing the so-called 'doces conventuais', and just as much on their impact on the production method of the fortified wine that is still named after the city of Porto today.
We close this first episode with one last gastronomic mention, because Foz is also home to the restaurant of Pedro Lemos who over the past decade has cooked his way to becoming a fixture and was rightly recognised by Michelin.
Has all this reading made you thirsty?
Below you'll find the ideal thirst-quenchers from the wine region just north of Porto. The region is known as the Minho, named after the river that, a little further north, forms the border with Spanish Galicia. The ocean, and especially the cooling wind blowing in from the Azores, has as much influence on the wines as on the people. That brings an infectious freshness and fascinating minerality to the glass. You couldn't dream of a better sparring partner for your seafood platter, or simply a cooling glass by the pool.