Porto is a vibrant, crazy, bustling, historic city on the Douro River. It’s the home of Port Wine, often just referred to as “Port” - and in the same way that bubbly that doesn’t come from Champagne is just sparkling wine, if your badass chocolate accompanier isn’t from Portugal, then it’s not Port, it’s just “fortified wine.”

The tie-in with Port Wine is immediately obvious everywhere you look.

Right along the riverbank, you’ve got the various brands of Port staking a claim and offering up a riverboat. Do they have races here? Dunno. I know that we saw lots of them going up and down the river chock full of passengers, though.

We skipped the tour again today, because the primary focus of it was the Cathedral. I’ve seen enough cathedrals on this trip already to last a lifetime. And Porto is FULL of cathedrals. I opted to head out on my own. I walked across the Ponte Luis Bridge on the lower deck.

From the lower deck, you can see a spiral ladder, obviously used for access by people who might need it. And by “spiral ladder” I mean a thing that acts like a spiral staircase, but is actually a ladder with rungs rather than steps and no handrail. (Look in the centre of the next pic)

Anyway, after I got across the bridge, I realized that I needed to get up to the higher part of town - but I didn’t want to climb up there. That’s when I noticed the funicular.

Easy! Just 4 Euro to get up the hill - well worth it, according to my knees.

Up at the top part of town, there are numerous cathedrals.

Do you remember, back in Madrid, how I said that if you have a museum with one or two iconic paintings by a famous painter, it feels more special than if you have room after room of paintings by that painter? It’s the same with cathedrals. By the time you’ve seen at least one cathedral in every place you’ve stopped on a trip, day after day, you eventually can’t be impressed much anymore.

Rather than poke my head in there and see the interior, I opted to head out into town and explore a bit. I love doing this. Go into an unfamiliar town, start walking, and whatever I find, I find. No map, no google, just explore. This leads, in the case of Porto, to some impossibly narrow streets with colourful buildings well outside of where tourists normally go.

It somehow manages to not feel claustrophobic, even though sunlight probably hasn’t kissed those cobblestone streets in centuries.

On wider streets, the Portuguese tradition of elaborate iron balcony railings and tile-covered walls is on full display.

After poking around town a bit, I went back to the ship and had some lunch. Rob and I went out together after that and decided to opt for the cable car to the top of the bridge, instead of the funicular this time.

Walking across the upper level of the Ponte Luis Bridge gives you a whole different perspective on Porto than the lower deck does.

Even the funicular looks tiny, like a model from up here.

We had a nice time, walking the streets, poking our noses into tacky souvenir shops (all of whom seemed to have the exact same tacky souvenirs), and picking up some Port wine to take home. It was a good day. Before long, we headed back across the bridge to take the cable car back to the ship.

We met some very nice people on this cruise and we had some great times, saw some interesting things, and even managed to have a good meal or two (although there’s a reason you don’t see a lot of restaurants outside of Portugal offering Portuguese cuisine). And while we enjoyed the river cruise experience with Viking, Rob and I both agreed that we much prefer Viking’s ocean cruises to the river cruises. Still, each have their own particular charm and we had a great time.

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