- [Announcer] Yellow Productions presents ...
- A travel guide for the city of Porto in Portugal.
I'm Chris and today we're going to show you around Porto
or as it's called in Portuguese, Oporto.
In this video we'll visit the following eight attractions.
We'll begin with a visit to Porto's famous port wineries,
we'll then take a ride on Porto's cable car,
we'll talk about some must eat foods in Porto,
we'll visit Porto's beautiful train station,
we'll climb up the top of a church tower
for some great views of Porto,
we'll visit a Harry Potter-esque bookstore,
we'll take a stroll along the river
and finally we'll conclude
by a visit to Porto's Stock Exchange palace.
Porto is Portugal's second largest city.
Lisbon's the largest, Porto's the second largest.
Porto is famous for its wine,
port wine to be exact.
The historic center of Porto runs across the river
that runs through the center of town.
The historic center, you can see it,
just right across the river over there.
The historic center for port wine on the other hand
is on this other side of the river
where the wine lodges are,
and the Sandeman lodge is the most popular
of these wine lodges.
It is the most well known port wine company
and this lodge has been here since 1850,
virtually unchanged since then.
You can take a tour through the wine lodge
and sip a little bit of wine,
though Topher's too young to have any port wine.
Along the river front
there are boats by each one of the wine producers
that are reminiscent of the boats they used to use
to transport the barrels of wine along the river.
One of the most famous lodges in Porto
is the Sandeman lodge.
This lodge has been here
since the middle of the 18th century.
It was originally founded by a Scottish man
who wanted to import the wines from Portugal to Britain.
The tours are 6 Euro,
you can turn up and hope they have a tour in your language.
We're here in the morning at 11,
they said we'd just missed an English tour at 10.30
and the next one's at 2.45.
Apparently Sandeman has two sister wine sellers
and they'll let you know when those have English tours.
So the next English tour for us is at Offley at 12 o'clock
and there is another one,
the Ferreira just a little further down the street.
So if you don't find a tour at the one you're going to,
check out one of the other lodges.
At the end of the tour they serve you some port wine.
Depending upon the price you pay
depends on the wine that you get.
For the 350 Euro tour we get two wines.
This is a white port and this is a tawny port.
The white ports are always served
as an aperitif before your meal
and they are served chilled,
and the tawny ports are served as a dessert wine,
typically with egg and cream based desserts.
So hopefully I gave you a little bit of ....
After visiting the Offley Wine Lodge
I will say that Porto wine
has a Offley high alcohol content.
20% to be exact.
If you're not interested in a tour
most of these lodges have places
where you can just sample their wine.
I bet that's what half the people are really here for.
On Saturdays on this side of the river
there's a little artists' flea market of sorts
that turns up where you can get
all sorts of hand crafted goods.
Something to know if you're looking for the wine lodges
and your Portuguese isn't so good
and you're trying to follow the signs,
is they call the lodges Caves.
Well, I think it's Car-vase,
but you can tell because it has a little wine glass on it.
That's helpful.
For a unique view of the wine lodges
and the river front of Porto
take the Teleferico de Gaia.
The views are truly terrific on the Teleferico.
Ba - dum - tish!
It takes you from wine lodge country
up to the top of the bridge near the Metro Station.
Tickets one way cost 5 Euro or 8 Euro for a round trip.
The thing to eat while you're in Porto
is the Francesinha Sandwich,
and it's a quote sandwich because it is a sandwich
because it has two pieces of bread.
Inside of that there is ham, beef, linguiça sausage.
On top of the bread is melted cheese,
you can also get an egg on top and it's surrounded by gravy.
So it's a sandwich that you serve with a knife and a fork,
you eat it and then you have a heart attack.
It is a really good sandwich, it was really quite tasty.
It is something that I am not sure
that I could have every day
but at the two places that are famous
and popular for the Francesinha sandwiches
there is Lado B and right next to Lado B
there is Santiago F.
Both names that have single letters after them.
Something that was interesting: we ate at Lado B
because the line at Santiago F was too long.
It was a really good sandwich
but in addition to the meat sandwich
they also have a vegetarian version
that instead of the meats has soy, tofu sausage ...
I'm not even sure how you can
turn this sandwich into vegetarian
but they'll do it for you.
Porto's main street through the historic center
is a big wide avenue that has the City Hall on top
flanked by two roads on either side,
reminiscent of Wenceslas Square in Prague.
Even if you're not taking a train into or out of Porto
it's worth a trip to the Sao Bento Train Station.
It's a very beautiful train station,
actually I think one of the most beautiful on the inside
that I've been to, the lobby area at least,
because it was decorated
with these blue Portuguese tiles from 1910
and they're showing the history of transportation
from horses to oxen to boats and even battles over there.
You'll find a number of historic churches
dotted around the town
with decorative Portuguese blue tiles inside
and in this case, outside the church.
That blue tile decoration outside
occurs on more than just one church.
Here's another one and a big one at that.
For some of the best views of Porto
climb up to the top of the Clerigos church tower.
The tower itself isn't actually that tall
but it is on the highest point of Porto
making it a place for unobstructed views.
You know, I say it's not that tall
because I haven't climbed it yet.
Maybe after I climb those 200 stairs
I'll have a different opinion.
The total number of stairs, 197 to be exact.
And actually the stair climb isn't too bad.
It's slightly narrow
but it takes about 10 minutes to get to the top,
maybe even five if you do it quickly.
It can be quite windy up here as you can see
so make sure you don't lose your hat.
That'd be a long way down
and I'm not sure if you would find it again.
After the tower stop by at the Livraria Lello,
a bookstore that was founded in 1881
and it's where people thought
J.K. Rowling was inspired to write Harry Potter.
It has to be the most elaborately decorated
and designed bookstore I've ever seen
and the staircase looks like something
out of an M.C. Escher drawing.
Very er, curvy.
The street right along the river,
the Ribeira, or Ribiera,
or as I like to think of it, the Riviera.
I don't think that's really what it's called
but I'm going to call it that for this video.
It's a great place to dine,
there's a lot of restaurants here.
They're the touristy variety, a lot of them have music.
It's a great place to buy souvenirs, hats, scarves,
tablecloths and there's even street performers.
(busker sings)
A great way to get your bearing on Porto
is to take a river cruise.
It's a great way for an hour to get an overview of the city
or it's also a great way to get some exercise.
Here's a guy drafting behind one of these boats in a kayak.
Wow, that's hardcore.
I wonder if he's kayaking to get some line.
To see an interesting kind of "private Palace" in Porto,
visit the Palacio da Bolsa, or the Stock Exchange Palace.
This palace was completed in 1910
to be the Porto and North of Portugal Stock Exchange,
built and owned by the Oporto Commercial Association.
When the Queen allowed this to be built
she required that they have a commercial court room
where they could have court hearings
about commercial procedures.
The other interesting room they built inside
is the Arabian room which was inspired
by the palaces of Grenada in Spain.
Heading to Portugal?
You might also enjoy watching more videos
in my Portugal series.
Click there on the right to watch my Portugal Playlist.
I've got videos on Nazare, Coimbra and Lisbon
and a whole bunch of other great attractions in Portugal.
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