three days in porto
a little travel diary
Folks, I went to Porto and Lisbon a few weeks ago. It wasn't my first time in either of those cities, which is partly why I chose to go there when I decided to plan a little trip. When picking destinations, I know there are those who only want to go to new places. Life's too short and all that. And I get it—I love exploring and googling “what to do in ____” as much as the next girl.
But I also like a bit of a repeat. I like finding a city I enjoy and already feel comfortable in and returning with a new perspective, experiencing it at a different age, with a different person, in different weather ... I'm a sucker for a same-but-different moment. It feels cozy. Like re-reading a favorite book and finding new paragraphs to underline.
So anyway, I went back to Porto and Lisbon. I hadn't been since 2019, to be fair, which feels like a prior lifetime. Like, respectfully and lovingly, that Clara is no longer with us. And that's okay! It makes old places more interesting to revisit.
To be clear, this is not a travel guide. The idea of me, in the year of our Lord 2025, telling you anything significantly new about these two cities that have been at or near the top of every destination list for the last fifteen years is laughable at best. Like, obviously I'll drop a few restaurants and walks and cafes here and there, but I don't want to mislead you before we even start: this will be more of a travel diary than a guide. Still—I enjoy writing these almost as much as I do reading them, so I hope you get a kick out of it, too.
Briefly, a relevant aside: I met up with a few lovely friends in Portugal who I was thrilled to see, but for the most part I was solo traveling. I've written about this in the past, haven't I? I've mentioned, I'm sure, that I'm a fan. And I still am! I like making my own plans, which are often just the absence of plans and a vague idea of a destination at which I may or may not end up. Occasionally, I like eating a series of snacks and cups of coffee over the course of 12 hours instead of sitting down for a proper meal. And I like walking as far as my body will take me.
However. However. Recently, I've been forced to acknowledge that perhaps the balancing force of a travel companion is not the worst thing in the world. Like, for instance, my best friend's appetite for multi-mile treks deeply differs from mine. And sure, it sometimes leads to some tension but she will also literally stop in the middle of the sidewalk and tell me, “Clara, we have been uninterruptedly walking for two hours and you are insane, we need to pause now or I will murder you.” And maybe I need that! A little personal checks and balances system that might prevent me from accidentally walking thirteen miles in the summer heat? Maybe it's necessary!
I'm not suddenly against solo traveling, for what it's worth. That's not what I'm positing. I'm just saying that maybe some conflict while exploring—conflict by way of having to care about someone else's feelings and experiences—is worth considering. If only, quite selfishly, to save your feet from blisters.
I started in Porto, which is the opposite of how I've usually done this trip in the past. It made me less prone to the inevitable comparisons with the Portuguese capital, and I think I preferred this permutation.
Porto is beautiful. It is so hilly you'll cry every time you step outside but I like a city that makes you work (see: suffer) to see it. And I am, as aforementioned, someone who likes walking. I'd done the very touristy things the last time I was in Porto—the cruise through the Douro Valley and the corresponding wine tours, the Livreria Lello, the São Bento Station, crossing the Luís I Bridge, strolling along Cais da Ribera—and they were, to be clear, things worth doing, but I preferred to amble more aimlessly this time around.
Once I checked in—and I stayed at Eurostars Aliados and it was very nice, central without being overwhelming—and after a lovely americano at Fábrica Coffee Roasters, my first stop was to a bookstore because I had not, shockingly, brought anything to read with me. This was intentional: I've found that no matter how many books I pack, I will eventually buy at least one more on my journey because I physically cannot stop myself from walking into bookshops, and my little carry-on was too humbly sized for that scenario this time. So I was an adult about it and forewent one inevitability to make room for the other. Growth, etc.
I went to Bertrand, which is definitely a (Portuguese) chain but what are you gonna do, and bought a dual-language version of Louise Glück's Vita Nova poetry collection. I will say, if you're trying to practice a foreign language and expand your vocabulary, these poetry editions are the way to go.
Here's an example from Vita Nova, which I purchased in large part because it reminded me of Dante's La Vita Nuova, which I also read in a dual-language edition:
My only real Tourist Plan in Porto was a visit to Serralves Foundation, located on the west side of the city and worth every sweltering second of the 70-minute walk it took me to get there.1 The Serralves compound, for sincere lack of a better term, includes a museum, a villa built in the Art Deco style, a "House of Cinema" that serves as both an ode to the moving picture and a screening venue, and relatively sprawling grounds that boast a rose garden and a treetop walk that made me feel, for a wee second, a little bit like Nickelodeon icon Eliza Thornberry.
Serralves had some of the best exhibitions I've seen recently, including South African artist Zanele Muholi's work portraying the lives and experiences of Black LGBTQIA+ individuals from South Africa, displayed beside a historical overview of the country's Apartheid regime and the many groups and movements that brought it to an end.
Within the Art Deco villa the foundation also had, respectfully, some of the most unsettling and disturbing pieces of modern art I've seen in recent times. Below are a couple exhibits, all of which I sent to friends as if I needed to convince myself I wasn't hallucinating. They confirmed I was not, and that I was indeed seeing an ostrich sticking its head in the wooden foyer.
They also had the banana pasted to the wall thing, which, okay, sure. Sure. Go nuts.
There's something very self-indulgent (laudatory) about visiting a museum on your own. I say this in part because my inner Narcissus comes out to play and I simply have to take a photo in front of every reflective surface I come across. And Serralves had a lot of them.
So there: I know I said this wouldn't be a travel guide, but I do recommend this place. Not only because of the many mirror and photo opportunities, or the fact that the art is interesting and/or disturbing, but also because it'll take you to a part of Porto where you would likely not otherwise go. And that's good! The city center is fine and well, but it's nice to explore a bit further out, so that when you inevitably ask yourself “could I move here?” you can do so with a bit more intel.
You know where else I went, courtesy of
’s recommendation? The Crystal Palace Gardens, where I sat on a little bench with my little pencil and book of poetry and read for a short while before going in search of peacocks. I did find some, but—and this will sound ridiculous—they were actually not particularly photogenic, and it felt like a disservice to everyone involved to memorialize them thus. Better for you to imagine them as majestically as they deserve to be seen.
My second-to-last day in Porto was probably my favorite. I decided to walk (see: trek) to Foz do Douro, a neighborhood also on the west side of the city but even further out, by the coast, where the river spills into the sea. You may have gathered this if you've been reading the newsletter for a while, but there are unfortunately few things that I, a Pisces from a coastal city, love more than a boardwalk on a nice (or frankly, not nice) day. My entire day will be turned around for the better, and I will text everyone I know about it.
It took around an hour and a half to get to the beach from the city center, and when I stopped at a little bar halfway through for a drink and a break, I realized that between the sun and the breeze and the familiar Brazilian music semi-blaring through the speakers, I was having the kind of day that makes a person almost embarrassingly happy to be alive.
It's just nice to feel like you're thriving. I didn't want to leave Foz too quickly, so I popped into a corner bar with some outdoor seating and had a port tonic (a treasure of a drink that should be more popular if you ask me) and some bread while slightly roasting under the sun and listening to two Australian girlies decide where they were going next based upon a series of three-five TikToks that they watched at full volume.2
Later that night, after spending a couple hours at the hotel recovering, rotting, and calling my best friend, I ate, quite possibly, one of the best sandwiches I've had in recent memory. I actually love sandwiches so much, possibly because they evoke childhood summer afternoons following swimming lessons, so this is high praise from me. I had, to be fair, walked a little over 11 miles and was maybe even suffering from the effects of a tiny case of heatstroke if we're being totally totally honest with ourselves, but let's not let that detract from this legend of a sandwich from Kind Kitchen.
I had a pastel de nata, too, because when in Rome, etc. The older I get the less of a sweet tooth I have, but dessert on vacation does, I fear, hit different.
My last day in Porto consisted mostly of this before taking the train down to Lisbon:
Can’t win them all.
Here’s a little abridged list of mentioned and unmentioned places I enjoyed:
Eurostars Aliados (hotel)
Serralves Foundation (museum)
Foz do Douro (beach, neighborhood, general water-related walks)
Fábrica Coffee Roasters (coffee shop; there are a few of these in Portugal)
Nola Kitchen (mostly healthy cafe)
Kind Kitchen (plant-based restaurant, home of my new favorite sandwich)
Zenith Brunch & Cocktails (healthyish cafe)
Do Norte Cafe (also healthyish! sensing a theme aren’t we!)
Muti (pizzeria I went to in 2019 that surprisingly very good; didn’t go this time but wanted to include anyway)
Encaixados (great traditional Portuguese food)
Nicolau (very #trendy, but I randomly had a great curry here)
The Royal Cocktail Club (incredible drinks)
And babes, I was going to write about Lisbon next but this newsletter is already too long. I'll leave it for another time, although I will say I happened to be in Lisbon at the same time as one of the Selling Sunset girlies, which I only realized when I ran into her on my last day. Did I say hello? Of course not. She's approximately seven feet tall—even if I tried to say hi, she wouldn't hear me from such great heights. Besides, what would I have said, it was so brave of you, Emma, a white woman from Boston, to open an empanada business? Better for some things to remain unsaid.
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I'm concerned that I'm implying the public transport in Porto is lacking. It's not. I'm just insane.
If there is one certainty in this life, it is that no matter where you are in the world, no matter when, you will be seated near Australian tourists who have been traveling the world for anywhere from two weeks to a year.
The peacocks not being photogenic DOES sound ridiculous
Whew, what a lovely voyage through your eyes. Thank you.
(And kudos for the little empanada dig at the end. I have always thought that to be the MOST ridiculous thing about her - though truly, I love that whole mess of a show)