Metravel city quest
City Porto: free walking route “quest: wine that does not grow in this city” along the sights. 9 points. Approximately 2 h 30 min. Quests and legends
Around 136 BC, Roman commander Decimus Junius Brutus Callaicus reached the mouth of a river between two granite hills and found two settlements facing each other across the water: the harbour of Portus on the north bank, where you stand now, and the older settlement of Cale on the south. The Romans joined their names into Portus Cale, ‘harbour of Cale’. Centuries passed, with Suebi, Visigoths, Moors and Christians ruling here. By the 9th century, the whole strip between the Douro and Minho rivers was called Portucale. When an independent kingdom emerged from here in 1139, it took the same name: Portugal. A little harbour at a river mouth literally named the country.
There is a second, stranger claim to fame. One of the world's best-known wines bears this city's name, yet not a single vine for it grows within the city limits. Port is born in terraced vineyards a hundred kilometres upstream on the Douro. Wine was floated here in flat-bottomed rabelo boats, and it matures somewhere else again: across the river in Vila Nova de Gaia's cellars. Porto is the city that gave the wine its name and essentially did nothing else for it, apart from building a granite amphitheatre of houses around the harbour where barrels were shipped for centuries.
Today's route follows the city's natural slope: from the granite heights where merchants once built lavish churches and Art Nouveau bookshops, down through six centuries of layered history to the river, across a great iron bridge, to where the wine you may drink tonight is actually sleeping in an oak barrel.
What to do: 1) Read the story and task at each stop. 2) Find the place on the map and walk to it. 3) Look around and answer the question.
This walking route is about two kilometres long, almost entirely downhill, with cobblestones and steps in places. We start on Praça da Liberdade, where Avenida dos Aliados meets the old centre. Onwards, down to the river!
The route points in order — what these places are and why they are interesting. Tasks and answers stay inside the quest.
From a distance, it looks like one broad façade. Come closer, and you will see two separate churches almost pressed together.
Go barely a hundred metres down Rua das Carmelitas and you will run into a queue. Inside is Livraria Lello, opened on 13 January 1906 by brothers José and António Lello.
A little further downhill, a granite tower rises above the rooftops, the symbol of the whole city. Nicolau Nasoni built it, an Italian architect and painter who arrived in Porto in 1725 and left his mark throughout northern Portugal.
From the tower, go downhill to Praça Almeida Garrett. There, behind an ordinary stone façade, lies one of Europe's most remarkable station halls.
Climb a little from the station. The cathedral stands on the old city's highest defensible point, and it is no accident that construction began in the 12th century as a fortress: its thick walls supported more than the vaults, forming part of the city defences.
From the cathedral, descend through the steep lanes, past the remains of the 14th-century Fernandine Wall, to the water itself. This is Ribeira, part of Porto's historic centre, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1996.
From the waterfront, you can finally see the whole bridge: a single iron arch thrown between two hills. Built in 1881–1886, it was designed by Théophile Seyrig, a Belgian engineer who a few years earlier had partnered Gustave Eiffel himself in Eiffel et Cie, building the neighbouring Maria Pia railway bridge for the firm.
On the other bank, stop and turn around. This is Vila Nova de Gaia, officially a separate city with its own mayor, although Porto's growth has long blurred the border.
An optional stop, twenty or so steps further along the same waterfront. Cálem is one of the oldest working wine houses, founded in 1859.
This route is part of Metravel city quests. Below are the other quests in this city and cities with quests nearby.
Traveller articles about this city will help round out the walk.