porto: antiga, mui nobre, sempre leal e invicta

 One of the cities in Portugal I'd like to go back to and explore more of is Porto. All the red roofs (I'd call that orange but every Portuguese person I've met insists the roofs are red), the river, old buildings and walls, little alleyways and the atmosphere make for such a charming place. And I also like the city's motto Antiga, Mui Nobre, Sempre Leal e Invicta (Old, Most Noble, Always Loyal and Undefeated) - I like it when places have mottos in general! Porto really is quite cute.

 I only ever made it to Porto once, despite having plans to visit it all the time last year. But one of my teachers organized a day trip for us in Porto which was really lovely! I'm definitely more accustomed to travelling on my own, but it was nice to not have to plan anything and to have company for a change. Seeing a place from the point of view of locals is also always a plus. In addition to two of our teachers, we met one teacher's husband and sister who was an architect and was able to give us a really interesting tour of the city. It was a really hot day, though, so we didn't perhaps get to see as much, and had some ice tea and ice cream breaks instead. If you see that big metal arch bridge in the first picture (Dom Luís I Bridge), there were children and teenagers jumping off of it into the river, and I kind of wished I could've done that as well. Apparently, if you throw coins into the river, they'll also dive and try to get them.

Travelling in a little group, I feel like I both got to see and hear a lot, and that there's still a lot left for me to explore on my own on a (possible) future trip. We mainly walked around the city (which I loved), and sometime after lunch headed to the beach before driving back home. So there's a lot of museums and churches that I still want to get into. As well as the Lello & Irmão bookstore that we did walk by and that there's a picture of somewhere below, but I didn't want to make everyone wait in line to get inside - especially since some people had already been there. It was part of my Harry Potter tourism since it's not only a top bookstore but also one of the places that J.K. Rowling used as an inspiration for Harry Potter when she lived in Porto (although basically every place she's visited claims to have been an inspiration, and, like a lot of other people, I'm really just a fan of Harry Potter anymore, not Rowling).

Hope you like these lil' photos, and let me know if you've been to Porto and what your favourite Porto things are!