Porto is Portugal's second largest city and also the capital of the Northern region. This is the hectic business and financial center. The location itself isn't really populous (about 240,000 inhabitants), but the Porto city area (Big Porto) rates high about 1,500,000 residents within a 50 km radius, along with cities like Gaia, Matosinhos, Maia, Gondomar and Espinho.
Porto includes a semi-Mediterranean weather, although it's strongly stricken by the Atlantic Ocean that makes it cooler than other Mediterranean cities. However, temperatures can go up as high as 40C in August in the course of occasional heat waves. Winters are moderate and moist, with occasional colder nights where temperatures may drop below 0C.
Porto has always been a mercantile city, which is evident within the type of structures that top onto the Avenida dos Aliados, the center of the downtown region. The center town, unlike other major Portuguese cities, which tend towards the baroque, is granitic and breathtaking. Inhabitants of Porto are referred to as Tripeiros (tripe eaters) allegedly because of the fact the city went without meat in order to supply the fleet which eventually left to conquer Ceuta in North Africa coupled with to subsist on tripe soup, still a specialty of the city.
The city is fairly variegated architecturally, along with ancient and also modern living as well. Porto's geography is hard on the feet, however pleasurable to the eye. The city is very hilly, with lots of structures built into a high cliff face that overlooks the river. Stairs cut into the stone go up and down the cliff face and offer a laborious however satisfying walking trip. Across the river from Porto proper, in the suburb of Gaia, are located the warehouses of significant companies managing Port Wine, like Clem, Fonseca, Sandemans, Kopke, among others.
If you converse in Spanish to some local, you will be mostly comprehended and usually they will freely talk on you, but every once in awhile, more so with all the older generation, you may be nicely reminded that you are in Portugal and also the native language is Portuguese.
Porto includes a semi-Mediterranean weather, although it's strongly stricken by the Atlantic Ocean that makes it cooler than other Mediterranean cities. However, temperatures can go up as high as 40C in August in the course of occasional heat waves. Winters are moderate and moist, with occasional colder nights where temperatures may drop below 0C.
Porto has always been a mercantile city, which is evident within the type of structures that top onto the Avenida dos Aliados, the center of the downtown region. The center town, unlike other major Portuguese cities, which tend towards the baroque, is granitic and breathtaking. Inhabitants of Porto are referred to as Tripeiros (tripe eaters) allegedly because of the fact the city went without meat in order to supply the fleet which eventually left to conquer Ceuta in North Africa coupled with to subsist on tripe soup, still a specialty of the city.
The city is fairly variegated architecturally, along with ancient and also modern living as well. Porto's geography is hard on the feet, however pleasurable to the eye. The city is very hilly, with lots of structures built into a high cliff face that overlooks the river. Stairs cut into the stone go up and down the cliff face and offer a laborious however satisfying walking trip. Across the river from Porto proper, in the suburb of Gaia, are located the warehouses of significant companies managing Port Wine, like Clem, Fonseca, Sandemans, Kopke, among others.
If you converse in Spanish to some local, you will be mostly comprehended and usually they will freely talk on you, but every once in awhile, more so with all the older generation, you may be nicely reminded that you are in Portugal and also the native language is Portuguese.
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