Perhaps going there in February wasn't the most convinient, though. During our 4 day stay we came across literally every kind of weather possible at this time. First two days we had to struggle with drizzly rain (that felt like someone was just spraying water over us, instead of typical rain). Third day was still cloudy but quite warm. Finally, the fourth day was perfectly sunny with over 15 degrees, too bad we had to departure home in the afternoon.

So now, I can provide you with some unpopular footage of rainy Porto. We had to admit, it did look charming in its own way with all the lights gleaming in the reflections. We wandered around the streets of the north side of Duero river (well, the south side is technically no longer Porto, it's Vila Nova de Gaia), had shrimps for dinner in a local restaurant with live music and eventually strolled by the river promenade in the rain.









 








 
We had high hopes that the following day the rain would stop. It didn't. In that case we tried to find some indoor attractions so we settled with two sights - Livraria Lello and Bolhao Market.











Livraria Lello is one of the oldest bookshop in Portugal, a very beautiful one. You actually have to pay a fee to just get inside the bookshop and the ticket office is located in a seperate venue. The queue of people waiting to get inside shocked me, whole groups of tourists were waiting on the street. I learned that despite being an interesting sight itself its popularity was boasted by Harry Potter merchendise. It is said to be an inspiration for Flourish and Blotts bookstore on Diagon Alley. Many events in the saga happened there, like Gilderoy Lockhart signing his books in The Chamber of Secrets. The rumour had it that Lello was also one of the filming locations for the series but after I did some research - sadly it's not true. It is fully understandable why this bookshop could be an inspiration for the Wizarding World, with its extremally detailed wooden gothic-looking ornaments and fancy vaultings.

However, the highlight of it all is a magnificent wooden staircase in its centre that leads to an upper floor. I couldn't take a full shot of it because it was so cramped with people, and I had too narrow lens. What a pity.











More walking around in the rain!



 




 





The Bolhao market was up next. I hoped it would be a little bit more fancy than it actually was. Maybe perhaps it was off tourist season, lots of the stalls were empty. Still, you could buy fresh fruits and vegetables, fish, souvenirs, plants or enjoy a meal there. I took notice that it was attended mostly by locals getting their groceries.













Third day brought an improvement of weather, luckily.





The improvement of weather meant only one thing. The ocean.

I didn't really check how can we get there, so I improvised. We took metro down west because it looked as if it was going somewhere near the coast. It did, but a little too far and we ended up in a funny district that seemed to be an utterly different village than Porto. It was a mix of a small coastal town, industrial docks and a deserted tourist resort. All in all, it was an interesting experience, and we did reach the ocean evntually.





 



























 
We weren't sure how to get back to the centre, but we saw a tour bus stop and we spontanously purchased a day ticket so that we could ride around on an open-air double decker and see much more than just by walking around by foot. We did both routes that were available and finished the day by walking Duero's promenade again.






















Last but not least, the final day with the prettiest weather we got. We woke up and got out earlier to catch some sun downtown before we had to departure for the airport.