Shabby Chic Porto

Our pre-travel familiarisation programme for Porto consisted of a quick read through the Eyewitness Top Ten guide book, Richard Ayoade’s always entertaining Travel Man and a reasonably well produced YouTube vlog, StayClassy. But as is usually the case, Anthony Bourdain’s Parts Unknown (Season 9, Episode 8) proved the most informative. I’m still rather sad the guy has departed the world. He still had so much of it to bring to our living rooms and lives.

Porto is a somewhat gritty working city, living in the shadow of Lisbon, overlooked by sun seekers in favour of the Algarve and trying its best to etch out a living on the leftover crumbs of the tourism industry. Little more than a decade ago, some of the most trodden tourist streets of today were crumbling and collapsing. But someone saw the potential for investment, and the city has slowly been on an upward trajectory ever since. Porto can also use the allure of the vineyards in the Douro Valley to help hook in a few extra visitors.

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One shouldn’t expect to stumble across the pristine avenues that litter Paris and other grandiose European capitals. The title of this post sums up Porto. Shabby chic, and that’s just fine. Shabby chic is all the rage anyway. It never goes out of fashion really, does it. You will stumble across plenty of rough uncut gems that are full of character and history. There’s a story waiting to be told on every street corner.

The joy of Porto is that it feels alive, it’s not pretentious, it’s fighting for its place in the world on several fronts. Investment has restored parts of the old town to a presentable standard. Peeling paint here is a reflection of a job done on a budget, not down to a fashionable trend. Porto hasn’t simply been dressed up to the nines with too much lipstick and offered to the world traveller as yet another theme park city.

There are still plenty of vantage points that allow you to look down on neighbourhoods with collapsed roofs, feral cats and overgrown yards. But this is a city that has an atmosphere and a vibe that makes you look upon such scenes with optimism. You see opportunity, not just decay. Portugal is one of Europe’s poorer cities and they have to work harder that most. But I have faith. Porto is a fun, exciting, safe city with rugged good looks. It’ll come good.

I’d even go as far as to say that Mrs P and I looked back and thought to ourselves, we could perhaps live here one day…