Missing Pictures: Porto, Portugal, November 8

...Yes, we promised we'd write what you wanted to hear... but first, here's a description of a another photo we lost when our computer was stolen. I guess we're not quite over it yet!

This is a picture of Porto, Portugal, taken from across the river in Villa Nova de Gaia. It is late afternoon, and the sun casts orange light on the narrow buildings stacked on the bluff. Most are only a room (two or three windows) wide, but at least six stories tall. The buildings jumble themselves against the bluff like an Italian hilltown with an urban, gritty and slightly dilapidated feel. Many of them are tiled in the Portuguese style - which makes graffiti easier to remove, but it's sometimes hard to find a match when broken tiles need replacing.

In the foreground, you can see the river that separates Porto from Gaia, and that travels just two kilometers to the west (left in this picture) to the Atlantic Ocean. The old-looking wooden boats are the traditional transport for that famous fortified wine -- Port. Most people think that Port comes from Porto, but in actuality, almost all of the port houses are in Gaia. This photo is taken from the terrace of Taylor Fladgate, where we tasted several and ended up buying a bottle of Taylor's 20. Special occasions only!

After taking this photo, we walked across the bridge you can see on the right, and explored Porto as it got dark. This ranks among our scariest experiences in Europe. Porto is a fascinating place - but its narrow alleys, many dead-ends, general feeling of cultural uneasiness, and lots of people that look like they have nothing to do make it a bit nerve-racking! On our way back to Gaia, we walked past a gangish looking group towards a unknown route down the hill that felt, several times, like a trap.

Luckily, we made it, even though this photo did not.

-SK