Porto Photo Gallery - City Scenes II

A few steps from the cathedral is Rua de Dom Hugo, which snakes around the hillside and the start of my walking tour's second (#2) leg. Porto, like many smaller European cities, is a great place to explore on foot.

After a short circuit, I reached back to the Cathedral. A few steps down in another direction lies an observation area with much better views.

I could see my next checkpoint further downhill , the Palacio da Bolsa, and the riverfront near it.

Homes along narrow alleys line the hillsides that stretch from the cathedral to the riverfront below.

There are so many hills in Porto it's hard to tell when one ends and the next one begins. But the narrow alleys have ended and this main street now heads downhill towards the river.

Downhill and almost reaching the waterfront is a large park. Praca do Infante D Henrique is fronted by 2 major landmarks, while a monument of Prince Henry the Navigator sits within. The Portuguese pioneered European expeditions to find a sea route to Asia in the 1400s, even though people feared at the time they would off the side of the earth (they believed the world was a square at the time).

On one side is Mercado Ferreira Borges.

On another side is the Palacio da Bolsa, whose construction started in 1842, and finally finished in 1909. While beautiful on the outside, its interior rooms are even more dazzling.

By now, it was lunch time and with prices far cheaper than other Western European countries, I ate far better than I otherwise would in Paris.

Next door, the 15th century Igreja de São Francisco doesn't hold church services anymore but the building is used for concerts, weddings, and baptisms.

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