13 - Oporto

Summary

The city of Oporto is the undisputed capital of the north, second only to Lisbon and metropolis for the province of the Minho, the source of Portuguese nationhood and the most populous rural region. It is about half the size of Lisbon, but has enveloped the surrounding townships without obliterating them. It is the port of entry and interchange for the teeming countryside to the north and for the valley of the Douro. One may still be aroused in the middle of the city by the crowing of cocks, even if the creaking of wains has given way to traffic-jams. It and its territory have given the name Portugal, and the word attached itself to the wines of the middle Douro. The true centre of the producing area is sixty miles away. The large barrels or pipes were formerly brought down the river on the characteristic rabelos, barges with a single sail, broad in the beam and of shallow draught, and deposited at the ‘lodges’ – lojas – of Vila Nova de Gaia on the south bank of the river. They have been replaced by other modes of transport, but a few are moored outside the lojas, with the names of the companies inscribed on their sails, rather as Vasco da Gama's sails were embroidered with scenes of Portuguese history, if the Lusiads is to be believed. They are brought out for an annual race.

Oporto – the Port – is built, like Lisbon, on the north bank of a great river, and its traditional centre, the cathedral, stands on a high bluff overlooking the stream two hundred feet below. There is no inland sea, but the river is nipped between the cathedral hill, formerly called Windy Hill, the Pena Ventosa, and another height surmounted by the Convent of the Pilar. The oldest part of the city lies below the cathedral where the river widens. The sea is four miles away at Foz, where a sandspit reduces the clearance to a hundred yards or so. The entrance may be dangerous, and only smaller ships reach the wharves to load wine and unload a variety of imports. For liners and freighters, a large mole has been built at Leixões on the ocean. The old walled city was an oblong including the cathedral and about a mile of water-front.