Porto, Portugal
A city where the food is cheap, the wine is superior, and the atmosphere’s entrancing. When traveling to Portugal, Porto is a must.
Located two hours north of Lisbon by train, Porto sits on the edge of the west coast of Portugal. The value of this city is incomparable to others in Western Europe. To put it into perspective, my college friends and I were buying 1 euro beers, eating fancy dinners, and buying trinkets in every shop we saw for little to nothing. For all of you trying to get around as cheap as possible head to the area near the university, by the Jardim de João Chagas, and there you’ll find your spot as well as some university students. In the end, we spent little money and wasted no time getting to know Porto the three days we were there.
Porto is filled with little hole in the wall restaurants, and those are the ones worth finding! Porto is beautiful by day, but one of fascinating things about Porto is how the city transforms at night. While you’re there I suggest taking an evening to walk to the Luís I Bridge. There you can enjoy the night lights and walk along the river side. One evening when my friends and I were trying to find a place to eat we saw a small sign for “Pizza Upstairs”. We walked into the first floor tire shop , then took the elevator up 5 floors to reveal a rooftop courtyard. I don’t know if it was just the atmosphere…but we all still rave about that pizza place. After finishing our four bottles of local wine and pizza we were ready to hit the town.
When traveling to Porto prepare yourself better than I did and bring some good walking shoes-this city is about as hilly as it gets. The upside to this terrain are the views you stumble upon when wandering the streets. What could better than the vantage point from the street? A rooftop, duh. We were lucky enough to get access to one and ended up spending 3 hours taking in the view and laughing amongst ourselves. One of my favorite things about the city of Porto is the color of the buildings. Each street, alley, or town square is unique. The architecture and design of the buildings in Porto make every street corner look like a post card.
As for getting around in Porto, there is a metro, and walking can get you to those hidden little corners in Porto easily. But, I do have a secret weapon for getting around: Uber. Remember how I said earlier Porto was extremely cheap? …Try a 10 minute Uber ride for 4USD! Our mouths literally dropped when we saw how cheap it was. Not only was the Uber ride cheap, but the AirBnB we stayed at only cost us 47 Euro per night. Airbnb’s are the way to stay in Portugal. We stayed in Portugal for 10 days and in total each paid 200USD for all of our lodging. My advice for finding these Airbnbs is to book early. If you have an idea of where you want to stay in the city refine your search to that area and start looking! Below I will attach the link to the Airbnb I stayed at, which is perfect for a group of 4. This place does have one downside however: the stairs. The apartment is on the top floor so the view from inside is incredible, but it takes some work to get up there.
