Porto is 5 words or less?

Hilly, clean, kidless, queues and wine

A couple of things hit you when you arrive in Porto. There are no mafia-organised beggars nor are there people hassling you to buy their wares or eat in their cafes. There are however queues. For everything. Memories of being in China years ago. But you soon go with the flow and queue and queue sometimes so mindlessly that you almost forget what the goal is! We even saw one queue forming one night and were most put out that we didn’t know what it was for however we felt like we should attach ourselves to the end.

There’s also lots of tiling on buildings, churches and heck, even on train stations. Sigh! Just beautiful.

They also do a lot of things with cork and I mean a LOT of things. Some that they shouldn’t, like cork backpacks and cork shoes. Someone definitely needs to tell them to stop. Now.

Now Ms X being the book lover that she is, had already heard about one of the most beautiful bookshops in the world and that it was in Porto so she had to go there. Alas, J.K.Rowling had lived in Porto pre- Harry Potter days and had been inspired by this place to write those bestsellers and carried this inspiration into her very first HP manuscript, which she began writing in Porto! So, HP fans and others flock here to peek inside and guess what- you have to first queue for a ticket and once you have the ticket, you then queue to go inside. Ms X was not impressed by the instagrammers who got in the way of the books. 

Folklore also has it that Ms JK Rowling began writing her first Harry Potter at the beautiful heritage Cafe Majestic. Yep, more queues. Worth it?

Beautiful to look at but the quality of what they offer and their prices are completely overated. Give Ms X a queue for the Hopetoun Tearooms any day.

Now a visit to Porto would not be complete without visiting its beautiful Douro River Valley, home of Port wine as well as the riverfront in Porto. The sounds, the tastes and the sights were amazing.

If you are looking for Ms X when she gets home, she will be busily working out what she can cover with tiles!