Portugal Travel Guía

Oporto has always been a city principally dedicated to the commerce. This becomes clear if we concentrate on the style of the buildings that find in the Avenue two Allied Forces. The center of the city differs from the centers of other big ciuades of Portugal, since it tends to the Baroque, covered style of granite and monumental ornaments.

The inhabitants of Oporto, although definitely they are Portugueses, stay removed culturally from the rest of the country, as they usually usually refer with one more than well-known phrase: "I carry é unma naçao” (Oporto is a nation). This division owes probably to the fact of which the city had been dominated by the Portuguese bourgeoisie and by English features of the commerce instead of for the nobility.

Oporto usually receives the name of “The very noble, always faithful and invincible city of Oporto“. Normally it usually shorten simply “The unconquered city”, title that was gained on having put up resistance against the Napoleón troops during the war.

The city possesses a rich and varied architecture, coexisting the medieval style next to the most modern architecture. Also it is structured in a staggered way, with large number of buildings constructed different heights of the hill that is located facing Rio Duero. Crossing the river, to another side of the city of Porto, we find the Quarter of Gaia, where the most famous companies of the valued wine of Oporto have its wine vaults opened to the public placed. Between the most well-known there are the wine vaults of Offley, Fonseca, Kopke and Sandeman, between others.

Only it is necessary to cross Put Dom Luis I to be able to approach the fantastic wine vaults that exist to another side of Oporto, many of them dated before 1700. someone d elas wine vaults are located in ancient monasteries, like that of Ferreira (port company founded in 1715). Ferreira is, in fact, one of the most interesting wine vaults that can be visited, together with the historical Sandeman, Graham and Calém.