Eat Well. Travel Often.: Porto & Douro Valley, Portugal

Porto was one of those places that I knew we'd love...I just didn't realize how much! Please pardon the billion pictures.

Our hotel, Mo House, was a boutique hotel with 8 rooms right in the center of town. We upgraded (a whole $10/night) to a room with a fantastic view of the Douro river. A fabulous breakfast was made to order each morning. It was the perfect place to recharge each night!

Our first evening in Porto, we grabbed a drink as the sun was setting and then headed to a Fado show at Casa da Mariquinhas. The "show" started at 8pm, but this really meant we were allowed to sit down for dinner service. Around 9:30, the actual singing began and lasted until after midnight. We didn't quite know what we were getting ourselves into, but we enjoyed it nonetheless!

The next morning, we walked all around the north side of the city. We began at Livraria Lello - the bookstore that J.K. Rowling noted as inspiring the Hogwart's Library. It was a bit of a zoo in there, but it was absolutely gorgeous!

After that, we walked a few blocks to Igreja dos Carmelitos, which is adorned with the characteristic blue tiles. It's also said that this fountain inspired the Gryffindor house. But as we would later hear from our food tour guide, there are a lot of places that claim links to Harry Potter, but only 2 that are verified!

The second of which is Majestic Cafe, where we ate a small lunch. J.K. Rowling would come here and write often! It was a beautiful cafe!

We had some time to spare before our food tour started, so we stopped to get our (almost daily) dose of Pastel de Nata.

After that, we caught our first tram in Portugal! The 28 takes you to most of the sights in Porto, so we rode this around until it was time to meet up with our guide.

We joined a "Taste Porto" group and had a blast! We love doing food tours wherever we visit and this was no exception.

Some of our favorite stops on the food tour were a local sardine shop, Loja das Conservas, and Tasco, where we were served a presunto sandwich and rose vinho verde!

We also stopped off at the Sao Bento train station for a quick history lesson.

The next day, we ventured south to the Gaia district, which is where all of the porto tasting rooms are located. We chose to do a tour and tasting at Graham's. We didn't know too much about port wine going in, but I came out having a definite appreciation for it!

I learned that I'm a fan of ruby ports (fruitier and bolder) and Jason is a fan of the older tawny ports (more caramel flavored)! We also had to take advantage of the views and sat down for a quick lunch afterwards.

On our way back into town, we decided to take the cable car to the top of town and walk across the Luis I Bridge. The Cathedral is also located at the top of town, so it was the perfect time to check out the church and its cloisters.

Making our way back down to town to the main square, Placa de Ribiera, we jumped on an hour long cruise under all 7 bridges of Porto.

We ended the evening with a dinner and vinho verde along the river! It was a pretty perfect day!

Our last full day in Porto, we decided to check out the Douro Valley. We went to 3 different wineries and tried a little bit of everything the region has to offer.

What we realized is that this area can't be fully explored in an afternoon! We'd love to come back and stay a week in an AirBnB here. It was just so lovely!