On the most underrated city ever

The minute I stepped into this city, I knew I was in love. Maybe it was because I hadn't slept in over forty eight hours, or had just come from one of the hottest cities in Spain where the temperatures were 40°C into a suitable, temperate climate, or because of the fact that we were booked in a hotel for once, instead of shared dorms where I had been living for the previous fortnight, or it could have just been because the town was just so overwhelmingly picturesque; I knew that I was going to love it before I had even seen it properly.

I haven't travelled half as much as I would want to, but I've been around Western Europe a bit, and in spite of all my travelling, Porto caught me completely unaware. Portugal is a beautiful country; it has everything from good looking men to delicious food and fabulous buildings, and I expected it to be nice before I went there. But I had spent the previous week in Barcelona and Madrid, and its pretty hard to be impressed with anything after visiting these two places. I never thought that Porto would actually be comparable to anything we had seen in Spain.

I was very pleased to be proven wrong, because Porto was just beautiful. Its too small a place to be even labelled as a city, but too big to be called a town. Its one of those places that sits right in between a city and a town, where you can enjoy the pleasures of a big city, while having the calm, lazy atmosphere of a small town. It is a sort of place where you don't even need a map for navigation because all roads take you from the main square to the riverbank and vice versa.

The first thing that struck me about this city was that it was just so colourful. I've never seen a town more colourful that Porto, and I live in Italy, so I know about colour! Sometimes, I think that European cities look more vivid to the eye when you look at black and white photographs because they are so ancient, monochrome and made of stone, but in Porto, it is the colour that makes this city come to life.

The city is positioned on a hill, so you need to walk uphill quite often, which is very tiring, but you get used to that after a few hours, and the view from the top is worth the climb. I have never seen a city with more churches than I saw here. From any given place, you can probably count at least five to ten church roofs, and the churches are architecturally very different from anything you find in Italy or Spain. I must say that even though the churches seem quite bare after the extravagance you see in Italy, they have their own charm. I also fell in love with the blue and white tiles that are used everywhere, from residential buildings and random walls to church façades.

Everything in this place gives you feeling of being ancient. It is as if someone has built it a long time ago, and completely forgotten about the town they built, and it was not unusual to find abandoned or burnt down buildings while walking around. I just adored the buildings all around the city and went crazy talking pictures of random houses. They were so charming; I know it sounds very grandmotherly to use the word 'charming' to describe something, but I can't think of a more fitting adjective to describe these buildings.

If all this was not enough, the excellent wine and delicious food in Porto is should be able to convince anyone who still has any lingering doubts about how amazing this city is. The photo above doesn't do enough justice to the francesinha, which tastes just as good as it looks. Porto is also one of the cheapest European city I have been to. Everything there is about 10% cheaper than the rest of Europe. After Madrid and Milan, it really felt as if we had struck gold.

Another reason why I am never going to forget Porto is because it has the most adorable bookshop in the world. After Paris, I never though I would fall in love with another bookshop again, until I stumbled onto this one. We just landed there by chance while randomly strolling around. They should really make it illegal to have such overwhelmingly pretty bookshops because people are unable to concentrate on the books the shop actually sells.

Porto is definitely one of the most underrated European cities, and worth visiting by anyone who is thinking of travelling around Europe.