PORTO - THE DOM LUÍS I BRIDGE
I'm standing high above the river, and for about an hour now a strong wind has been beating against me while the cold slowly creeps under my fingernails. The sun is slowly setting and I'm just waiting for the street lamps to come on and for that perfect early-evening lighting scene to appear, the one for the ideal photograph. I'm warming myself up a bit with port wine that I bought in the afternoon at a nearby winery. Things are finally starting to look good, I take a test shot, but at that moment I discover my battery has run out. So I search for the second battery, but it's nowhere to be found. I must have left it at the hotel. This can't be happening! It's a good 40 minutes to the hotel and back. I've been freezing here for an hour and now, in the end, I won't get that evening photo? Tomorrow I'm already leaving Porto, which would mean departing without a defining shot of the city. It occurs to me that polar explorers always keep their batteries right against their bodies, so that they hold their charge better in the cold. So I quickly warm the empty battery with my own body.
After about five minutes, when I really need to shoot (so that the sky isn't already too dark), I try pulling out the now-warmed battery and putting it into the camera. And lo and behold, the camera turns on. The battery does flicker to say it doesn't intend to work much longer, but I can shoot. In the end I manage to take about 10 photographs, exactly the ones I'd set out to take. After that the camera shuts off for good, and I can calmly go and find some nice spot for dinner. First to the hotel, of course, for the spare battery - what if there were something worth shooting in Porto at night too.
I have to admit that, apart from the sale of port wine, I didn't know much about Porto. I spent just under three days here and I absolutely fell in love with it. It was March, so there weren't many tourists yet. The city was fairly quiet, so you could wander beautifully through the old streets, admire the incredible bridges, taste old port wines, and shoot and shoot. Porto is the second-largest city in Portugal and its population is somewhere around 250,000. In the surrounding areas, though, almost 2.5 million people live, as this is one of the most industrial parts of Portugal. The Douro river flows through the city, and it's along this river that port wine is grown, but we'll take a look at that region in some future article.
In Porto you'll find many monuments, churches, palaces and temples. Without a doubt, though, the city's greatest landmark is the Dom Luís I Bridge. Its height is 45 metres, and if its structure reminds you of the Eiffel Tower, then know that its construction was directed by Eiffel's colleague Théophile Seyrig. The metro runs along the upper level, and there are two footpaths for pedestrians there as well. Car traffic then runs on the lower level. The bridge was ceremonially opened in 1886, and at that time it was the largest bridge of this design in the world.
Tip 1: Sometimes, in very touristy places where I don't have much time, I have a little ritual. I go and look at the souvenir stand at the postcards of the area. Not that I'd want to copy someone else's shots - you'd never pull it off exactly anyway - but it gives you a way to find out what good viewpoints of the place exist, and it saves you a lot of time and searching for the right locations.
Tip 2: Make use of all the lookouts, bridges and elevated spots you come across in Porto. Practically all the views of the city are wonderfully photogenic.
Tip 3: Another great idea is to go for an early-morning run around the place on your first day. If you can manage at least 10 km at a decent pace, then within an hour you'll have mapped out a large part of the area and you'll immediately know where to head later, at your leisure, with your camera.
Gear: For Porto you probably won't need any special equipment, just please bring plenty of batteries :)