Places/Portugal

Norte

Porto

A river city of granite and tiled houses, steeper than it looks in photographs.

Porto is smaller than Lisbon and more vertical. The Ribeira photographs well and sleeps badly in high season. Stay up the hill, walk down, and use a taxi back when the evening has gone on.

Port the drink is made across the river in Vila Nova de Gaia. A tasting is optional and widely available. The city is not only that glass.

See

• The bridge on foot

  Dom Luís I, the upper deck, early. The view is the cliché because it is accurate. Then keep walking into Gaia rather than turning around for the same picture.

• A bookshop only if you like rooms

  Livraria Lello now charges entry against a crowd. Go if the interior is genuinely your interest. Skip it without guilt if you wanted a bookshop and not a queue.

• Cedofeita

  Lunch, shops people use, and a sense that the city has a present tense.

• The river end of the afternoon

  One drink in Gaia facing the old city, then dinner back uphill where the menus are calmer.