OK, my rhyming is terrible. Certainly no one has ever called me a poet… but you get the idea.

As I continue to combine my Porto-related posts, I thought I’d dedicate one to the miradours. Like Lisbon, it’s a hilly city and there are many viewpoints all over the place. It’s hard to choose a favorite view. The River Douro makes for a great backdrop but so do the buildings and churches. The information center woman said the best view, which provides the iconic view of Porto, isn’t in fact in Porto. It’s across the river in Gaia. Makes sense. You get a lovely view of the city on the river. It’s from the Jardim do Morro.And above the Jardim, I walked up to the Serra do Pilar, which I think alludes to the arched “base” that’s under what used to be another monastery. If someone told me the history on this, I’ve already forgotten it! But it looks great as the background on photos. And it’s a little higher — though I only did this one night so my photos from the top are not that clear. BTW I want to point out that to get the daylight photos from the Gaia side I actually crossed the Luis I bridge on the upper level again!!! It just made sense since I was already up the hill on the Porto side. This time, I walked on the opposite side of the bridge, which had fewer views over the towns and felt less scary. It was also less crowded so I didn’t have to dodge people and walk over the scary crack under the metro tracks more than a few times. Speaking of bridges, I went down by the Ponte do Infante, the next bridge east of the Luis one, where there was another viewpoint from the Porto side. Mostly of bridges. I read that people can actually walk up the arc — thankfully I didn’t see anyone doing so because that would’ve freaked me out!! Well maybe not as I’m not the one doing it. Idk. Except that my palms are sweating just writing this. So I guess it would’ve freaked me out.The one further east of Infante is the Maria Pia bridge, actually designed by Eiffel (of the Tower fame). The Luis one looks similar but was designed by one of his students (and when the student beat his master in a design competition for the bridge, Eiffel never spoke to him again. Just a bit of bridge trivia!). For the record, Sao Joao is the bridge just east of Maria Pia and because it’s so close, is really ruining my shots of it. In any case, there are six major bridges between Porto and Gaia, which I’m told is some kind of record. I believe they all allow both pedestrians and cars though I think only the Luis has the metro crossing.

Another favorite miradour is in front of the Se (cathedral). During Salazar’s time (Portugal’s dictator for 36 years until 1968 and another supposed influence for JK Rowling in naming one of her bad guys in HP), they erected an awful statue in the placa. I avoided the statue but there is a nice view from here…Speaking of statues, I must comment on another (though I didn’t take a photo of it either). In front of Porto’s legislative building they have a very masculine-looking Justice statue. But she’s not blindfolded and she’s holding her scales under one arm (so they aren’t open and balanced) and a big ass sword in the other. The building is across from the old prison and a square where they used to execute people. Lovely.

That said, I also read about a global ranking of peaceful countries (measured by both internal gun use and external military presence, among other things) and Portugal is in the top 5. (Along with Iceland, NZ, Denmark, and Australia.) There was some controversy because of course domestic violence isn’t included in the measures — but it’s nice to know guns aren’t big here. And their various revolutions/civil war have been relatively non violent (although they did kill the last monarch and his son but I guess it could’ve been bloodier). Nice bit of Portuguese history.

Back to miradours. The Palácio de Cristal is a lovely park, lots of terraced gardens and a library at the center. Reminded me of a vertical Central Park or maybe more like a Villa Borghese. It’s got amazing views of the River Douro. The park itself was also very peaceful although some of the gardens and the library were closed for repairs. I even climbed a bell tower for views. After my harrowing time on those wooden slats in Rovinj, I swore off bell towers but I heard this one had solid stone stairs with railings everywhere. And I’m trying (unsuccessfully) to get over my fear of heights. Clérigos Tower was, when it was finished in 1763, the tallest tower in Portugal. They had cute signs showing where it fared against newer buildings. Two of Chicago’s own made it on one placard. And the views were good although I was pretty anxious. Happily, the stairs were stone and sheltered with railings and fencing and weren’t at all bad. It was standing out on the tower that had me wall-hugging. Oh well. I’ve been worse. I think it was 240 steps total so after all I’ve been doing lately, really nothing. In fact I just looked and that day barely hit my current average for flights of stairs per day (like 33 flights). I did considerably more the day before just walking around Porto to the Cristal gardens and all over that vertical park. But back to views. Porto really is lovely — less rushed and crowded than Lisbon. More friendly. Cheaper. Some parts were rather run down but there was construction noises and cranes everywhere.

To close, here are a few shots of Porto streets …That’s it for now. I’ll finish my Porto area posts tomorrow on the train to the south of Portugal.