In the earlier versions of The Plan, we planned on spending ten days in Porto. TEN. I think we thought we would be tired after all of the touring in Italy and would want to chill somewhere for a while, plus we were thinking ten days was the right amount of time to get to know a city.

Well, I’m definitely glad we went to Porto, but I’m also glad I had semi-last minute cold feet and split our time in Portugal between Porto and Lisbon. This small city is absolutely worth exploring and also great for chilling, but ten days would have been waaaaaay too much. In fact, as we get more adept at long-term traveling, we are finding that the ideal length of time in most cities is five to six nights. And honestly, with some notable exceptions, this is a city trip. We don’t really have the gear or the knowledge to be climbing any mountains or plunging into any jungles on this trip, so we have been drawn to exploring urban landscapes: big, small, mega (here we come, Tokyo!), and most especially cities with easy public transportation.

Speaking of, Porto has a superb transit system: something we have come to value highly since our Subaru is thousands of miles away in Moab. In Porto, you buy a single card at a kiosk that gives instructions in English which you can then use on all of the trams, busses, and subways. No need to carry around a pound in spare change to buy bus tickets. To Ben and I, this is the absolute ideal. I have an unfounded distrust of cabs, and we had a weird Uber experience in Dubrovnik that makes me reluctant to use the service outside of the US. (Long story short: we got picked up after hanging out at the beach, the guy got all upset, claimed we got his seats wet and it would cost him the 500 krona to clean, which he clearly expected us to hand over that minute, and promptly disappeared when I told him to take it up with Uber. When I got back in our apartment, I looked it up and apparently this is a common scam, so…crisis averted!). Plus, we are trying to stick to our budget, so being able to use cheap busses and trams instead of pricier taxis gives us a sense of a place along with being easy on the wallet.

Despite the really nice system to get around, I’ll fully admit that we didn’t do a whole lot in Porto until the last day. Our Air Bnb for the first four nights we were there was so nice and easy to hang out in, with super fast WiFi, gigantic windows overlooking a tree-lined and lovely street, plus a relaxing hot shower, made it was hard to drag ourselves out to explore the city.

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Ben did a walking tour on our first day, I did some shopping for warmer gloves and thermal leggings (which of course I own, those items are just sitting uselessly somewhere in the U.S.), and then we met at Europe’s fanciest McDonalds, which in addition to being a legitimate tourist attraction in Porto, WAS really fun. Plus, once in a while, we enjoy the ease, familiarity, and cheapness of McDonalds. No regrets there.

Speaking of fancy, we also hit up two places in Porto that have a JK Rowling connection. Every Potterphile knows that JKR spent two years living in Porto as an English teacher while she was writing the first book, and there are two sites significant to that origin story in the city: the Majestic Cafe and the Livraria Lello bookstore. Honestly, I think some of this is urban myth, because I can’t find anything out of JK’s actual lips confirming that she went to the Majestic or Livraria Lello, other than this sketchy yahoo.com article that quotes, of all people, her ex-husband. But having been the residence of the world’s first self-made billionaire author, along with one of my childhood heroes, is huge in Porto, and we went along with it.

We went to the Majestic Cafe first. Allegedly, this is where JK Rowling spent a lot of time hanging out, and would scribble ideas on napkins if inspiration hit. I grabbed a napkin to put in our “ephemera souvenirs” pile (we are keeping ticket stubs, museum passes, receipts, and other little souvenirs) in honor of this story. Besides the JK Rowling connection, the cafe is a beautiful, historic place that originally opened in 1921 as the toast of the town. It is all stained glass, fancy light fixtures, and very high prices because why not? Those Harry Potter tourists are a pile of Galleons to be made. The entire place was full of out of towners snapping pictures and selfies, and we joined in merrily. I think my coffee cost six euros, and Ben’s tea (which was a teabag, to be clear) was equally ridiculous. But it was fun. Honestly, I’m surprised they aren’t selling butterbeer. Lean into it, you know?

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Then, we went to the Livraria Lello bookstore. Personally, I think the Harry Potter connection is even sketchier here. According to non-official sources on the internet, JKR was a loyal customer of this bookstore which also features absolutely stunning architecture: a stained glass skylight, carved wood everywhere, and the centerpiece, a serpentine staircase that goes up, splits, and then joins back together in a wonderfully curvy fashion. It seems like it floats from the floor, and it really is an architectural masterpiece in its own right. PLUS, it definitely looks like something straight out of Diagon Alley, or maybe the moving staircases at Hogwarts.

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To deal with the crush of Harry Potter fans, the bookstore now has a system to get us all in there and to make what I imagine is a huge profit. You buy a ticket for 5 euros, which can then be applied to a book. Once you get inside, you can take all the selfies and pictures you want…and since EVERYONE is doing that and it’s not that big of a place, it’s actually really hard to take decent pictures. This is what it looks like WITHOUT all of my fellow tourist brothers and sisters milling about: 

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But not even swarms of fellow visitors can take away how gorgeous the bookstore is, and I had been wanting to read The Handmaid’s Tale and The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles anyway, so when we saw English copies of both books we snagged them and put our ticket vouchers to good use. The guy at the checkout desk said that this was the least crowded the bookstore ever got, which is SHOCKING because it was very, very full when we were there. Like, constantly bumping into people, delighted if you could snap a quick picture of the staircase sans people kind of crowded. I do not know how the staff deals with the crush of humanity during peak season or even shoulder season, but they seemed like pros and everyone is making money or making memories, so it must work out.

Porto is, of course, famous for other things besides hosting JK Rowling for two years. Port wine is a huge deal, as the name suggests. I will confess that I didn’t drink a single drop of port while we were there. Ben wasn’t really interested, so one afternoon I set out to find some port wine. First, I walked across the Ponte Luis Bridge, which looks VERY cool looking up at it but was oddly terrifying to walk across. I’m not any more afraid of heights than the next person, but something about that bridge gave me the SERIOUS willies. Maybe it was the fact that the barrier was a see-through iron railing, the gap running alongside the tram tracks, or the fact that the whole city, including this bridge, was full of boisterous German tourists in town for a big soccer game and we had noticed that most of them weren’t exactly sober. The last thing I needed was to be knocked into the Douro from 300 feet up by a drunk futbol fan. I barely took a picture before shoving my phone back into my pocket with clammy hands and speedwalking across, muttering to myself “I’mfineI’mfineI’mfineI’mfine…” I was very happy to reach solid ground across the river and I immediately felt fine instead of just trying to convince myself I was.

All of the port places are arranged along the river, and I half heartedly wandered into one pricey looking place before the sunshine beckoned me back out to settle in with a non-port glass of Portuguese red (which was delicious) and a view of the river and the bridge I just survived. I think I got a good deal and had a lovely afternoon with my kindle.

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We started getting some energy on the last two days of our visit. On our penultimate night, we met up with some Americans (actually, even better–some Chicagoans!) we met at a speakeasy in Lisbon the week before. Talking to Rick and Cheryl over drinks at the Royal Cocktail club was such a blast: everything from travel and being Americans in the world to food and our jobs. Meeting new friends on this trip has been awesome, as well as seeing family and friends in international destinations. Plus, even though Ben and I love spending time together, it is good to mix it up once in a while!

On our last day in the city, we changed accommodations because I had, back in the early days, gotten excited about a boutique hotel and booked us a room there before budget realities hit. However, the place was nonrefundable (this was before I learned the valuable travel lesson of never, EVER booking a nonrefundable hotel room) so we moved across town. Rosa Et Al Townhouse was very beautiful and designer and trendy. It also gave us one of our weirder accomodations experiences: an ensuite room that didn’t exactly seperate the toilet from the sleeping area. It was very, um, open and I don’t know if this is a European thing or a cool boutique hotel thing but it is definitely not a Rachel thing. Luckily, there were chairs right outside our room to pass the time while the other party could have some privacy during their…business. What a weird choice.

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After laughing at our bizarre hotel room, we strolled over to the Jardins do Palacio de Cristal, which had stunning views of the Douro and a plethora of peacocks just hanging out. I jokingly called them “Porto pidgeons”, because they honestly acted just like those less flashy feathered friends. They walked around, pecked at food, and perched all over the places. They were not in the slightest bit bothered by the human visitors. The park was also home to a crew of squawking roosters that had a LOT to say, and which were really fun to watch. I imagine the little kids in Porto get taken to the park to be amused by the peacocks, just like my mom used to take me to the park to feed the ducks.

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We also visited the Sao Bento train station, which is famous for an absolutely gigantic blue tile mural of Porto’s history. Since there weren’t translations, I’m going to assume based on the images that the history involved many battles with Christian knights, parades, making wine, and a bunch of agricultural animals. But even not knowing what I was looking at (I guess I could have used the Google machine in my pocket?), the train station was gorgeous and worth a stop to gawk over.

A few days before we set out for Morocco, I was talking with my friend Cheryl (from Denver, not my new friend we met on the road) and I said that while I loved Portugal, I don’t know if I would recommend Porto to someone putting together a Portugal itinerary. I now take that back: it’s definitely worth visiting for a few days (not ten, though) for the cheap and delicious wine, the gorgeous architecture, the Harry Potter sights, and maybe even the fancy Mcdonalds.

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