The Traveling Blogcrastinator: It’s All Downhill from Here

Monday, November 10, 2025

Today is the last full day of our river cruise. We will remain docked in Porto all day. Actually, we will be across the river from Porto, in Vila Nova de Gaia.

Our excursion today is “Porto on Foot.” We are going to have a local guide. To start, we will ride to the top of one of Porto’s hills on a bus. Once there, we will have around 30 minutes to explore, and then we will begin walking down to the river and over the bridge, back to our boat.

Porto Cathedral was built in the 12th century. It is Romanesque in architectural style. There are no flying buttresses, and few windows in the massive structure.

Our guide says the saxophonist is here every day

The view from the top

One of the Camino routes has a checkpoint at this cathedral

The upper level of the courtyard is covered with tiles that form murals of religious scenes

Our next stop was São Bento Train Station, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The inside of the station is covered with beautiful tiled murals. The lower tiers feature blue and white tiles. Multi-colored tiles cover some of the upper tiers. The tiles depict historical events, agricultural activities and everyday village life in great detail. This remains an active train station.

We continued downhill to Porto’s most famous street, Rua das Flores, a pedestrianized shopping street.

We were given free time on Rua das Flores. Unfortunately, just as we arrived, it began to rain. We had relied on the weather report that promised sunny skies, so we had only some small umbrellas. Eventually we found a hot chocolate place where we passed the time with churros and hot chocolate with the consistency of pudding.

By the time we arrived at the riverfront, the rain was more of a mist. We walked past old taverns and warehouses and saw where the different flood stages over the years had left their marks on the walls.

At the Luis I Bridge, we were able to walk across on the lower level, which is supposed to be limited to taxis, but wasn’t. People could be seen on the upper level, but the guide said there was much more traffic, and there were places where there was no railing.

As we walked to our boat on the Gaia side, we saw old wine boats that used to bring the wine from the vineyards down to Porto. Nowadays these boats are used for an annual boat race in which the wineries compete fiercely.

View of Porto from Gaia

The Gaia side of the river is where all the wine warehouses used to be. It is very trendy now. The warehouses have been converted into hip, upscale bars and restaurants and boutique hotels.

I enjoyed this informative walk, though I could have done with less free time.

Before dinner, there was a farewell toast because we would all be leaving tomorrow morning.