2.5 Hours In Porto

Miradouro da Vitória

If you only have two and half hours to show your city to first-time visitors, what do you show them? It was a challenge, but the sun was on our side.

Wlodek and Piotr had a stop in Porto on their way home to Poland from the Azores. Earlier this month I’d offered to show them around, not knowing that they didn’t have all day — or even half a day. Later Wlodek checked their flight itinerary and as it turned out, they only had five hours from the minute their plane was expected to land to the minute their next plane was due to take off, and we all know how unreliable those times can be. Then deduct the time to get off the plane and out of the airport, the drive to the city and back, and the cushion period for security and reaching the gate. What’s left? Not much!

This is what we were able to cover, running around the historic centre: Miradouro da Vitória, Clérigos Tower, City Hall, São Bento Railway Station, Sé, across the top deck of Ponte Luís I, down to Cais de Gaia and back across the bottom of Ponte Luís I (where I shot this video between Golden Hour and Blue Hour), Ribeira, souvenir shop stop on Rua de Mouzinho da Silveira, Livraria Lello (which was mercifully unbusy), Carmo & Carmelitas churches, then back to the airport an hour before their departure time.

I didn’t take many photos as we were on a mission and Ice the Dog with us, but I managed to get a few to remind me of our route. You know, just in case another Layover Tour like this one comes up!