Return to Porto

I was in Porto ten years ago.

Night has already fallen and we descend from our hotel towards the banks of the Duero River, the place with the best view. We pass by a fruit shop, the prices seem significantly lower than ours, I stop, translate the names of fruits and vegetables on my mobile phone and note that everything is almost twice as cheap as in Serbia. The city, which is one of the most attractive tourist meccas in Europe, in an EU member state with an average salary of 1.850 euros, has prices twice as low as Belgrade. You will get the same impression in the restaurant: dinner for three people with appetizers, main courses and a bottle of local wine, with a view of the Duero River and the Luis I Bridge, ranges between 80 and 100 euros.

The tourism figures are impressive: Porto (1,3 million inhabitants) receives 3,7 million tourists annually, and in 2023 it had 5,9 million overnight stays, which is a big jump from 4,8 in 2022. By comparison, Belgrade (1,4 million inhabitants) saw 2023 million tourists in 1,3. Therefore, a city with almost the same number of inhabitants as Belgrade in a country with an average salary two and a half times higher than in Serbia, hosts three times more tourists at prices that are twice as low as here. What would they say on social networks, smart enough.

We reach the river, sit in a restaurant and order local specialties. My favorite dishes here are the “Chouriço à Bombeiro”, a traditional Portuguese sausage that is grilled over an open flame on the table in front of the guest and the “Francesinha”, a juicy sandwich with ham, melted cheese and a fried egg on top. Of course, at the end of the meal, a glass of sweet port wine and "pastel de nata", a traditional Portuguese delicacy in the form of a puff pastry basket filled with vanilla cream, are mandatory.

The waiter serving us came from Angola, a former Portuguese colony that gained independence after the fall of the dictatorship in 1974. We talk about how Tito helped the Angolan revolutionaries and fighters against the Portuguese colonial rule, and in return he got an oil well in the enclave of Cabinda there. They say that the well, now owned by NIS, is worth more today than the amount that the Russians once paid for 50 percent of the entire company.

One of the city's attractions that I didn't get to visit ten years ago is the Sao Bento Railway Station, which is on the UNESCO World Heritage List. The construction of the station began in 1903, and the building was inaugurated in 1916, while the First World War was raging in Europe, during the first two and a half years of which Portugal was (traditionally) neutral. It was only in March 1916 that the German Empire declared war on him, so he was forced to participate in it until the end of 1918. What Sao Bento Station is famous for and why it was put on its UNESCO list is the more than 20.000 ceramic azulejo tiles that were used to create famous scenes from Portugal's history. It is interesting that from the moment when the construction of the station began until the moment of its opening - Portugal changed from a monarchy to a republic (in a coup d'état in 1910). The first republic in Portugal lasted until 1926, when Antonio de Oliviera Salazar introduced the dictatorship (Ditadura National) and the New State (Estado Novo), which lasted almost half a century, until the Carnation Revolution in 1974, when this country officially became a democracy, and such a state continues to this day. That themes from the Estado Novo period are still very current is evidenced by the windows of bookstores dominated by novels dealing with Salazar, Churchill, Hitler...

The next day, we crossed the Bridge of Luis I to the other side of the Duero River, where the most famous port wine wineries are located. At the time it was opened in 1886, it was the longest "double deck" bridge in the world (172 meters). Today, the D-line of the Porto Metro passes through the upper part of the bridge, while the lower level is used for buses, cars, cyclists and pedestrians.

Here is a bit of trivia about the bridge: in 1879, Gustave Eiffel presented a project for a new bridge with only an upper level in order to allow unimpeded river traffic (at that time there were still numerous single-deck ships and steamboats with tall chimneys). The proposal was rejected due to the large increase in the number of inhabitants of the city, which required a "double deck" bridge. In the next competition in 1880, the project of the Belgian company Société de Willebroek won, the construction lasted six years and the bridge was officially opened on October 31, 1886.

We crossed the lower level of the bridge to the other side of the river and found ourselves in the realm of "port" wine. On the facades and roofs of buildings and warehouses, bright advertisements of the largest port wineries: Sandeman (1790), Cálem (1859), Ramos Pinto (1890), Ferreira (1751)... When I visited this city for the first time in 2014, I made a proposal to the city authorities in Novi Sad to turn the Petrovaradin fortress suburb into wine district after the part of the city on the other side of the Duero River where there are wineries that produce port. In Podgrađe, military and city areas could be offered to wineries from Fruška Gora, of which there are now over 100. Perhaps one day there will be understanding for this or a similar idea, which would create a real tourist attraction connected to the geographical area of ​​Fruška Gora, which is adjacent to Podgrađe, in the arrangement of which millions of euros have been invested in the past years, but traffic has not been stopped and no meaning has been given to it.

photo: r. shepherd

Not far from the hotel where we stayed, in the Praca de Mouzinho de Albuquerque park, there is a huge Monument to the Heroes of the Peninsular War (Peninsular War, in our country it is also called the Spanish War of Independence). Its authors are the architect Marques da Silva and the sculptor Alves de Souza. The works began in 1909 on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the start of the war, and were only completed in 1952. The pedestal of the monument is 45 meters high, and it is surrounded by sculptural works representing scenes of artillery in motion, and English soldiers who came to support Portugal can also be seen. The presence of female figures in all parts of the monument is interesting: in front is a woman, Vitoria, who leads the people, holding the national flag in her left hand and a sword in her right. The set is completed by a tall pillar bearing a lion (symbol of the flag of England, which sent soldiers to support the Portuguese in their victory) over a swooping eagle (symbol of Napoleon's empire).

As you walk the streets of Porto, the ethnic diversity is something that immediately catches the eye. Like our waiter, a large number of inhabitants of the former Portuguese colonies - from Brazil in Latin America through Angola, Mozambique, Cape Verde and Guinea-Bissau in Africa to Goa and Macau in Asia, have found their new home here.

However, unlike many European cities where ethnic diversity translates into racial tensions felt on the streets, Porto seems to have managed to avoid that fate. Although Portugal was the latest of all European colonial powers to withdraw from its colonies (most of them only in 1974, after the Carnation Revolution), it is obvious that the mentality of the Portuguese made the immigrants from the colonies integrate faster and better into the local society.