Customer Blog: Chris & Helen Porto 2023

Post pandemic, Chris and I have eased ourselves back into travelling with a series of short weeks in Europe.

Our rules are simple

• Organised by Lucy

• City break flying direct from Birmingham

• 4 nights

During the last 18 months, Lucy has arranged a series of fabulous destinations for us including Venice, Prague, Barcelona and most recently Porto.

This time the short week was Tuesday to Saturday, in mid-September.

We arrived late afternoon, the small hotel was well appointed, comfortable and friendly. Venturing out we were soon in the heart of the city, which does have a number of pedestrianised streets, and elsewhere decent width pavements with plenty of cafes spilling out and space for easy walking. What we hadn’t realised is Porto is very hilly. It is a steep descent to the river and there are a number of hills within the city so plenty of ups and downs wherever we walked.

Many of the buildings are covered in friezes and large scenes made from the iconic blue and white Portuguese tiles, mostly added, we found out during the 1920s and 1930s. Many of the other building are covered in beautiful geometric tile designs too; everywhere you look is interesting!

There is plenty to see and do in Porto, we did go to the cathedral and the railway station which has amazing tile friezes. We loved the Bom Sucesso market and walking across both tiers of the Luis I bridge. Porto is also a place for strolling, window and actual shopping as well as stopping and enjoying the Porto alternative to a G&T; white port and tonic . There are plenty of people watching opportunities, buskers and street artists, particularly down by the river Douro on both sides (Porto and Villa Nova).

Food is excellent, available at an abundance of good value and popular restaurants. Everywhere English was spoken and there were English menus.

No visit to Porto is complete without a tour of a Port Lodge, we chose Taylors as they offer a self-guided tour, finishing with a tasting. The tour was excellent, we took it at our pace and at the end we finished up in their tasting area, a lovely sunny rose garden complete with peacocks where we sampled 2 ports and they offered a menu of snacks and more ports if you wanted. Taylors is further up the hill than some of the other Port lodges and as we climbed away from the hustle of the river side, the views became more magnificent and everything seemed more peaceful. They also sell their port at the Airport, so we didn’t have to worry about heavy bottles as we returned to our hotel.

We highly recommend Porto, organised by Lucy, for a short break, and we’re looking forward to our next destination in a couple of months time!

Thanks again, Lucy.