Porto; Saturday, 28 January, 2023

After a nice lie-in and a leisurely breakfast I headed out of the hotel and wandered the very short distance over the road to pick up the local service bus out up the coast to my first stop of the morning up on the Atlantic coast. The Forte de São Francisco Xavier otherwise know as Castelo do Queijo or Cheese Castle due to the shape of the rock that it was built on resembling a piece of cheese, stands guard over the entrance to the important commercial and fishing harbour of Matosinhos.

Today the castle is little more than a shell with one small room holding a collection of artefacts, a bar and a room that doubles up as a craft market, but you can head up onto the roof of the fort and from there you can get some excellent views out over the harbour and down the Atlantic coast.

From Cheese castle I headed south along the coastal path that leads back towards the mouth of the Douro and the centre of the city. The path from the castle to the mouth is about 2.5Km, though it twists and winds along the shape of the coast, and at regular intervals there are options to help you on your way with a refreshment stop.

By the time I was about 2/3 of the way along the walk it was already fast approaching 1pm, so I stopped for a very pleasant lunch in the sun looking down on a sandy beach and the Atlantic lapping away at the shore – hard to imagine that this is the same sea that can produce powerful storms that batter the coast at less becalmed periods of the year.

After lunch I continued my walk along the coast finishing off at the Fortaleza de São João da Foz close to the mouth of the Douro River. This fort is slightly larger, but of a similar design to the Castelo do Queijo, though in this instance the inside of the castle has been turned into a business park so the grounds were actually closed on a Saturday afternoon. I was able to have a wander around the outside of the castle and along a little bit of the Mole that protects the mouth of the river from the worst of the storms that The Atlantic throws at Porto.

From the river mouth I caught the bus back upstream into the centre of town and had a bit more of a wander around the historic centre before wandering over to the Dom Luis I bridge that links Porto and Vila Nova de Gaia. Long since closed to traffic it’s now a pedestrian and metro bridge, with the metro running like a tramline across the bridge, which in the evening causes some issues.

Due to the bridges location it faces almost due West which means at sunset there are excellent views of the setting sun to be had, and consequently the bridge fills with sunset watchers, both tourists and locals and consequently the metro has to pick it’s way across slowly – bell ringing, to create a temporary gap in the crowds to keep the service running and let it through.

After taking in the sunset both from the bridge and the small Jardin do Morro over on the Vila Nova de Gaia side of the river I headed back over to my hotel to freshen up before heading out for dinner.