Porto

A Portuguese chesnut merchant has his head in the clouds. This was the first day of my last destination and it was the point on my trip where my own travel plans had coincided with those of three friends from La Rochelle. So as soon as I got sorted at the hostel, which is one of the best I've ever stayed in, I headed out to find a pay phone to get in touch with Sara, Julia and Abe. Using a pay-phone in Portuguese is a lot harder than one might imagine. But, I eventually got through for ten seconds.

Geographically, Porto is a very unique city. Like many European cities it straddles a large river (the Douro) which provides access to the Atlantic and therefore played an important role in Porto's history as, you guessed it, a port. The two sides of the city, on opposite banks of the river, sharply rise up the valley. And I mean sharply, walking to the hostel from the river, with a backpack in the sun and with no map ended very sweatily. It seems impossible that people could build on slopes like that, in turn it meant that the rooftops were very close together and the streets small and windy.

There were five bridges visible form the centre of town. Each one slightly further back from the other, but each providing the exact same service. From the main, metal bridge in town, when standing on the top, you could look down onto city itself, it brought images of Brazilian favellas. People were living right underneath the bridge. It was almost as if the architect grabbed his map of Porto and drew a crude line across the river in any old place. You could imagine the city council telling the people on the street, "Oh yeah by the way we're building a bridge above your house". The bottom of it was literally no more than a couple of inches above the tiles. Imagine having a tram rumbling past like that every ten minutes. No thanks, I have trouble sleeping as it is...