‘The Portuguese have a mournful soul’. This is what a guest tells me at my first Meet Up in Porto and it’s not the first time I’ve heard it. This may be a Latin country, but it is not the joyfulness of the Spanish or the high-octane exuberance of the Italians that sweeps you along, but something gentler and more ancient. Something that speaks of a life lived on the outside. Here, in this cocktail of the raw and the gentrified, Porto is having its moment. A fashionable enclave for people who don’t care about fashion and, as I’m discovering, a hub for the political waifs and strays of the Western World.
I’ve been here for less than 48 hours and am already signed up to four social events. There are so many weird and wonderful things you can do in Porto. Perspectives on Polyamory, anyone? How to heal your anxious avoidant attachments? Cuddle Parties? Seriously. Can’t I just paint a tile or something? Sticking to the purely vanilla, I join a group called ‘I Don’t Hate Mondays’ which takes me down a shabby cul-de-sac where no tourist would ever venture. I press hesitantly on a brass buzzer and hope for the best.
Casa Camelia is a hidden, boutique hotel with bougainvillea filled terraces that open out onto the kind of panoramic view of the Douro that makes your jaw drop. Owned by a Swiss architect with a penchant for motorbikes, he hosts monthly drinks for the international community that gravitate here, and speaks five languages, effortlessly moving from German to English to Portuguese and back again.
Porto is packed with Donald Dashers – people considering their options, wrestling with golden visas and trying to decompress from the shock of recent history. I meet my first Donald Dashers of the trip at the social, she an artist and he an exporter of Tibetan singing bowls and bracelets, both delightful. We have a lengthy discussion about the sheer awfulness of it all, until he pauses and gesturing towards the river says, ‘And then. There’s this’. It’s a sentiment I completely understand.
What a different kind of lark it is, this slow travel business. I am amazed at how you can lift a life, place it 1,280 miles away and have it feel familiar, yet profoundly altered. I sleep well in the apartment and wake up early to the sound of seagulls and the shifting tides of the weather which seem to change on an hourly basis. When I finish work at 4, I head straight out and wander without a plan, other than maybe to find some seafood, visit one of the brightly coloured churches or sit by the river and watch the show.
Everywhere you look in Porto there is transport and forward motion. Early 20th century trams, trains, pleasure boats, cable cars, funicular railways, Rabelos that were once used to transport barrels of port wine from the Douro Valley, even a helicopter service for the more boujee traveller. When you come to Porto, you get the benefit of two cities. The craziness of the one you expected and the one on the other side of the river – Vila Nova da Gaia, still fizzing with life, but home to sedate, aristocratic port houses and rose gardens. Connecting the two worlds are six bridges, with the grand dame being Dom Luis I, the only bridge in the world with two levels that can be crossed by train and on foot. At weekends, it becomes a stage for fearless teenage boys, who vape cavalierly and gee up the crowds to cheer as they dive into the water. Twenty years ago, the tall, multi coloured houses along the river at Ribeiro were inhabited by locals, but now it’s full of shops and restaurants and the fruit and vegetable stalls are gone. I wouldn’t say the Portuenses hate tourists, but they are bemused by the way in which their city has been monetised.
On Wednesday evening I join a writer’s group and spend an hour and a half scribbling a stream of consciousness and grappling with plot themes. Amongst the group, I find more sheltering Americans, an embarrassed Israeli, a South African and a smattering of Portuguese writing science fiction and poetry. I have not at the time of writing met a single Brit at a meet up. I’m assuming they’re all in the Algarve channelling their inner Judith Chalmers. What is it about the south of this country and my fellow compatriots? It’s pretty enough, but it doesn’t have the history (fun fact – Porto is older than Portugal itself) and even the beaches, with all their salty drama and winding boardwalks, are superior. Of course, you can’t actually swim here. No one ventures into the Atlantic unless they’re clutching a surfboard, but there’s not a better coastline in the whole of Europe than Praia de Miramar, just a 15-minute train ride outside Porto.
On a non-working day, I’m averaging 25K steps and when my calf-muscles have had enough, I jump into a Bolt – cheaper than an Uber and far more popular over here. They are mostly spotless, electric cars driven by Portuguese women who are fitting it around childcare and whilst it’s something I never do in London, I won’t pretend it’s not convenient. In the spirit of other things I wouldn’t normally do, there is a walking group on Saturday mornings which is allegedly 10K steps, but according to my phone is at least double. Walking along the upmarket Foz Do Douro shoreline it’s easy to recover in a sun lounger and a cocktail, which over here is a Porta Tonica or a White Sangria.
Roll on 17 June and I’ll officially be on a staycation and awaiting the biggest festival of the year – the Festival of Sao Joao. Plans are already afoot….
