Despite the lack of sleep (which I’ve learned is becoming a trend for me while living in Europe), my roommates and I woke up in time for another free tour – different from the one we took the day before – that started at 10:30 am. Once again, our tour began with pouring rain – accompanied by strong winds – and so the majority of our group decided to return to our warm hostel while my roommate Emily and I decided to tough it out. Our tour guide for the day was named Tiago. We started out by going to the São Bento train station, which was a beautiful train station decorated with walls of murals made out of tiles. Tiago told us that each individual tile was painted (so multiple artists contributed) and then placed together like puzzle pieces in order to make up an entire image. The tiles were painted with blue, despite being supposedly the most difficult color to work with, because the azulejos, or tiles, consists of the word azul, or blue (Tiago said there was some kind of loss in translation). The overall images were beautiful, depicting different historical events and stories of Portugal.

Next on our tour, Tiago took us to the São Francisco Church, which used to be a convent. Tiago told us that women who either didn’t want to marry who their father wanted to pair them up with, or who had already dishonored themselves with another man would come to the convent. Inside the church, the walls, ceiling, and altar are ornately decorated in pure gold. It’s absolutely gorgeous. At the back of the church there’s a gate with spikes on it. Tiago informed us that the lovers of the girls at the convent would come visit them at the gate and that the spikes kept the girls from getting too close to their lovers on the other side.

By the time we left the church, the weather outside had cleared up. It was a perfect time to visit the bridge over the Douro River. This was an exciting moment for me on the tour because I had been craving to see the water the moment I got off the plane in Porto (I grew up by the ocean). When we reached the bridge I proceeded to take a million photos of every scene around me. Interestingly, Tiago told us, the Dom Luis Bridge was engineered by a disciple of Gustave Eiffel (who of course engineered the Eiffel Tower), Theophile Seyrig. While at the top of the bridge, Tiago told us about how port wine originated in Porto and gestured towards all the wine cellars on the other side of the Douro River, which is technically a different town from Porto called Villa Nova de Gaia.

Suddenly, while I was soaking in the clear sky and beautiful view, the wind picked up. The wind became so strong that we thought we would be knocked over, and the trek back to the other side of the bridge seemed like it took ages. I couldn’t see anything the whole way! Thankfully, when we got off the bridge, the wind was blocked by the buildings on either side and we were able to relax for a moment. The tour ended by Tiago taking us down through narrow stairways between quaint buildings and homes until we reached the waterfront below the Dom Luís Bridge. The view below was just as beautiful as the view above and I once again took out my camera to take pictures as Tiago spilled some more facts about some nearby statue. Tiago proved to be an awesome tour guide and we couldn’t help but take a picture with him when the tour was over.

After the tour, Emily and I met up with the rest of the roommates for a wine tour across the river. I learned that in order to maintain the temperature in the wine cellars, water is sprayed on the woody ground. The cellar floor is made up of wood blocks that look like cobblestone. The wood ends up soaking up the water and keeps the rooms cool and humid. At the end of the tour we tasted white and red port wine (and our tour guide told us that its better to drink white wine first and then the red wine). By the time we walked outside, it was dusk and the city lights reflected on the water, making Porto glow. Feeling that I had fully taken in all of Porto, I went to sleep at a reasonable time back in the warm hostel.

Thanks to Tiago, I learned a lot of facts about Porto.

Here are just a few of them:

• Lisbon and Porto are rivals (ha, Porto is better!)
• the rooster is the symbol for Portugal (there’s some strange story that goes along with that)
• thank you = obrigada (or obrigado if you’re a boy)
• yes = sim and no = nao
• My name is… = Chamo-me (and chamo-me is pronounced as ‘shamo-me’ so Tiago thought it was funny when I said chamo-me Shannon)
• Adoro Oporto = I love Porto
• saudade = this word has no exact translation in English but it is a beautiful word that expresses a deep state of nostalgia or a profound melancholy longing for someone that you will not see again or that you miss dearly