Porto: Itineraries

A Top Day in Porto

It's a Friday morning in April, and outside São Bento station, the clipped tread of tripeiros (Porto natives) registers not their eagerness to work but their impatience for the first balmy weekend of the year. I veer uphill to the fortress-like cathedral and partake in its commanding view of hills and towers, rooftops and river. The morning air may still be cool, but the sun is already warm on my neck. From here it's a rapid descent, via a jumble of medieval streets, down to the Ribeira district. I take an unplanned wander among its fine squares, blue-tiled churches and salty riverside bars. Across the Douro River lies my next stop - the ancient port wine lodges that clamber up the river's far bank. Lunch is with friends at Taylor's - among the most venerable of the lodges and certainly the most English and garden-like. My companions are architects with connections, and after digesting with a thrilling Taylor's vintage, I'm taken on a back-stage tour the Casa da Musica, Rem Koolhaus's remarkable, trapezoidal concert hall. Next is Porto's other contemporary masterwork - Álvaro Siza Vieira's luminous Museu de Arte Contemporânea. In the adjacent Serralves gardens - the city's finest - we ponder the differences between Koolhaus and Siza Vieira, tawny port and late-bottled vintage. My friends decide to test my slight but growing knowledge at Solar do Vinho do Porto, a bar given over exclusively to port wine and its proper accompaniments - cheese, nuts and dried fruit. Evening's on its way, but it's still warm enough to sit in the bar's fussy but delightful cliff-side gardens. They once served as refuge for an exiled Italian prince and, like him, we watch the sky turn colours not unlike those in our glasses -- tawny, ruby, impenetrable purple. Still to come are a latish dinner at Mariazinha followed by a an even later arrival at the clubs of Foz Douro (both chic AND friendly - only in Portugal...). But there's no rush. First we must savour the various delights laid out before us.

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