They Come in Many Shapes and Sizes... All of Them Head-Turners!

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

As we continue our tour of Porto, Portugal’s second largest city, we make one discovery after another. There are museums to see, many buildings to see inside, but too much for the limited time we have here.

Naturally, as a detail fanatic and a lover of architectural detail, it’s not just the balconies I love, or the intricate stonework, but also the buildings themselves.

If you were blindfolded and flown in a plane for twenty-four hours, then placed in the centre of the city,where you saw no signs and had no clues, and one thing is for certain:  as the blindfold came off and you soaked in the first sights around you,  not for an instant would you be saying that you were in London, or Athens, Amsterdam, or Paris, Venice or Sydney,  New York or Rio de Janeiro …

Portugal has a flavour that is all it’s own, a style that once you see it, you will recognise as very Portuguese, and the centre of Porto is a concentrated portion of that flavour.

In the centre of the city the buildings are often narrow, always tall and full of character.

I could walk these streets every day and find something new… don’t give me chrome or steel or reflective glass in towering faceless generic skyscrapers, square boxes or rectangles.

I want to see something that intrigues me, makes me smile, leaves me in awe, takes my breath away or just leaves me wanting to breathe it in…

Stunningly Portuguese…

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)

(photograph © Kiwidutch)