“Porto was once one of the country’s richest towns, known for its artisanry. These days, it’s reemerging as a food and design hub, proving that austerity isn’t the death of creativity.
In Portugal’s second most populous city, medieval townhouses stack up beside the Douro River like Legos, and churches wear their blue-and-white azulejo tiles outside as well as in. Settled by the Romans, and famous for its port wines, which became a favored export to England via the 1703 Methuen Treaty, Porto was a lucky beneficiary of its country’s vast, centuries-spanning empire — look to the Baroque, blinding-gilt interior of the Church of São Francisco for evidence. Its riverside location made it an important industrial center in the 1700s and 1800s.
In recent years, however, the city has fallen on hard times. (Portugal was, along with Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain, one of the European countries pummeled particularly hard by the global recession.) But these challenges have, ironically, helped preserve Porto’s narrow, colorful streets, which the city’s forward-thinking new mayor, Rui Moreira, is doing his best to protect from the global march of coffee shops and fast-food chains. The city has seen an explosion of small, innovative businesses appealing to an influx of visitors — significantly, architecture-obsessed tourists who come to marvel at Porto’s mosaic of medieval, Gothic, Baroque, Renaissance, neo-Classical and Brutalist architecture, all built on Roman foundations. Long a creative hub, Porto now has serious cultural centers such as Rem Koolhaas’s Casa da Música and the contemporary art museum Fundação de Serralves, as well as a flourishing design scene. The highly walkable city also has a new breed of hotels reinvigorating some of those medieval townhouses with minimalist décor, restaurants riffing on the country’s hearty cuisine and spirited bars. And despite the rise in tourism, the city still feels self-effacing, a reflection of the modest, slightly melancholic character of its denizens. Here, a few of our favorite places.”
Porto é referência no The New York Times Style Magazine
Luis Díaz Díaz (New York Times Style Magazine)
The Portland of Portugal
“Porto was once one of the country’s richest towns, known for its artisanry. These days, it’s reemerging as a food and design hub, proving that austerity isn’t the death of creativity.
In Portugal’s second most populous city, medieval townhouses stack up beside the Douro River like Legos, and churches wear their blue-and-white azulejo tiles outside as well as in. Settled by the Romans, and famous for its port wines, which became a favored export to England via the 1703 Methuen Treaty, Porto was a lucky beneficiary of its country’s vast, centuries-spanning empire — look to the Baroque, blinding-gilt interior of the Church of São Francisco for evidence. Its riverside location made it an important industrial center in the 1700s and 1800s.
In recent years, however, the city has fallen on hard times. (Portugal was, along with Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain, one of the European countries pummeled particularly hard by the global recession.) But these challenges have, ironically, helped preserve Porto’s narrow, colorful streets, which the city’s forward-thinking new mayor, Rui Moreira, is doing his best to protect from the global march of coffee shops and fast-food chains. The city has seen an explosion of small, innovative businesses appealing to an influx of visitors — significantly, architecture-obsessed tourists who come to marvel at Porto’s mosaic of medieval, Gothic, Baroque, Renaissance, neo-Classical and Brutalist architecture, all built on Roman foundations. Long a creative hub, Porto now has serious cultural centers such as Rem Koolhaas’s Casa da Música and the contemporary art museum Fundação de Serralves, as well as a flourishing design scene. The highly walkable city also has a new breed of hotels reinvigorating some of those medieval townhouses with minimalist décor, restaurants riffing on the country’s hearty cuisine and spirited bars. And despite the rise in tourism, the city still feels self-effacing, a reflection of the modest, slightly melancholic character of its denizens. Here, a few of our favorite places.”
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