My first impression as we crossed the Douro river into Porto at dusk was “Huh?!”
The rave reviews I had read didn’t align with what I was seeing in the car’s headlights - ancient and contemporary buildings colliding in undesirable ways and a jarring amount of eye-popping graffiti!
Much to our relief, daybreak brought a pleasant view. Two large doors in our hotel room opened up to the Praça de Batlha with the Teatro Nacional anchored across the square. Coffee shops dotted the streets along with clothing stores, post office and restaurants. This room made us feel like kids in a candy shop because of all the times we've had rooms overlooking back alleys.
Porto was called Kallis, meaning beautiful, in Greek. The Romans added a port and rechristened it Portus Cale. In time, it became Porto and influenced the name of Portugal.
The two-tier Dom Luis I bridge towers over the Douro to connect Gaia and Porto, twin cities along the river. Porto is the older of the two and sits in the cliffs along the north shore, Gaia on the south. In 1879, Gustave Eiffel (think Paris) floated a plan to create a single tier bridge on the river. That was shot down by the city planners who realized this would not suffice given the growing population.
Foresight, imagine that!
In 1881, the project was awarded to Société de Willebroek and the lower and upper levels were completed in 1886. In an ironic twist, the construction was led by by Eiffel’s project manager. Ouch.
Porto is hellishly hilly and challenging for aging knees. With a little bit of planning, you can walk down to the river, hug the shore and take the Funicular dos Guindais to the upper part of the city. The river walk is a happy place of locals lazing in the sun and tourists breathlessly taking pictures - guilty as charged! The ride on the funicular was quick and delivered us a block from our hotel.
I recognized some Portuguese words from speaking Hindi. This isn’t surprising given Portugal’s colonial history in India. Between 1498 and 1524, Vasco Da Gama made three trips to India, landing in Calicut the first two times and Goa the third time. The Portuguese ruled in the western parts of India and spread as far as Calcutta on the east. For over 450 years they colonized India until the British arrived. For this reason, Portuguese influence is undeniable in Indian architecture, cuisine, language and culture.
Did you know Vindaloo is actually a Portuguese-Indian fusion recipe? It has “vinho da alho” - wine and garlic - and Indian spices. How about paneer being introduced to Indians by the Portuguese? That comes as a complete shock to us Bengalis who think we gifted the world the best dessert ever - sugar-laden paneer balls called roshogolla.
If you haven’t tried roshogolla my urgent advice is to search for it and get there pronto.
Porto has many churches and our guides took us to the Igreja de São Francisco. This Gothic church is a UNESCO World Heritage site and has more gold than I imagined I would see in a place of worship. Construction of the church dates back to 1244. In the 15th and 16th centuries, prosperous families in Porto chose to be buried in the catacombs of this church. As we walked through the pantheon of the departed, I had an epiphany: we were looking at the crypts of the ancestors of our school friends! Azevedo, DeMello, DaCosta, Ribero, Menzes, Pereira are last names familiar to us and influenced Portugal’s colonial presence in India.
No trip to Europe is complete without indulging in wine. Since Porto is an hour from the closest vineyards in the Douro Valley, we chose to visit a wine museum in Gaia and got a crash course in grape varietals, wine making, oak barrels, bottle shapes, and the wine regions in Portugal. The tour ended with tasting of local white, red and Port wines. The visual representation of the personality of each wine was fantastic. I posed in front of Pinot Noir, my favorite, pretending my phone is a bottle of the wine.
The last night with our friends culminated with a celebration of the 70th birthday of eight boys and one girl. A member of our team was charged with procuring karaoke equipment for this party. He paid a busker to show up with a mic and speaker! Brilliant was completely redefined with this act of ingenuity. We sang, talked about what the celebrants plan to do in the coming decade, sipped wine, gulped single malt and enjoyed dinner and dessert.
Obrigada República Portuguesa.
Obrigada amigos e amigas.
Boa viagem de volta para casa!
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