The Magic of Porto and the Comfort of What We Know
Life in Philadelphia is comfortable and change is hard.
News Update 1: We are very excited to have received our NIF’s this week!1
News Update 2: We are out of town this week (this is a scheduled post). We will be out of reach of the interanet for the most part. I will respond to comments upon our return and fill you in on where we are next time.
Picking up from my last post about how our rather comfortable new surroundings had captured our hearts, and we were hoping Philadelphia would be our home for the long haul. But alas... another nudge of reality came at the end of June, 2018, only five months after we moved into our house. The announcement that Justice Kennedy was stepping down from the Supreme Court. This of course meant that the Orange F*cknugget had the opportunity to choose his second Supreme Court appointee. Immediately, we felt another jab at this shift in the wrong direction and discussions of a plan B popped up again.
Our gut sense was that things were going to devolve even more, and I again began googling options of where we might be willing to go. Uruguay was out, but after several hours I stumbled across multiple articles boasting about how wonderful life in Portugal is, how relatively easy it is to get residency there (it's not easy, but more about that later), and how after five years of residency, you can apply for permanent residency and then citizenship.
While the hype about Justice Kennedy stepping down began to fade almost as quickly as it popped up, our nervousness remained. I emailed a bunch of articles about Portugal to my husband and a friend, but the idea of uprooting and leaving the US felt really hard and overwhelming. The idea of a plan B was once again relegated to the back burner. Over the next several weeks, I would periodically read articles about life in Portugal, but didn't give them any serious thought.
That was until, at the end of August, a friend and his partner (now husband) invited us to join them for a trip to Paris in October. That is when we thought, hmmm, if we spend a few days in Paris, then it wouldn't be that much more to do a side trip to Portugal to experience it first hand. What was originally planned as several days in Paris and a couple of days in Portugal morphed into four (actually three2) days in Paris, followed by three days in Lisboa (Lisbon3), and five days in Porto.
Why so long in Porto? I can sum it up in one word. Weather4. You see, my research in the previous few months kept pointing to Porto's mild summers as being much more to our liking than most of the rest of Portugal. So we focused on Porto.
This was my first trip to Paris, and what else is there to say? It’s PARIS! It was everything I anticipated, and more. Words cannot describe the stunning beauty of Paris. We may have lost our planned first day (because our flight was canceled), but we still made the best of it. In our short three days in Paris, we crammed in a lot, and I will never forget our lunch in the Montmartre.
After Paris, we headed to Lisboa for part two of the trip. While not quite the level of romantic beauty as Paris (is anyplace?), Lisboa is nonetheless quite a remarkable city and feels every bit as important as so many other major European cities. We stayed in a 300 year old apartment in the Baixa-Chiado neighborhood and really enjoyed our time there. But it was the upcoming five days we spent in Porto that I was most excited for.
As wonderful as our time in Lisboa was, it was now time to get on the train to Porto. Checking into our Airbnb in the Ceidofeita neighborhood (around the corner from a certain famous bookstore), we were super excited to begin exploring the city. Anticipation was high, and we were not let down. I cannot put my finger on it, but wandering into the streets on the first full day had us hooked.
How to describe the magic of Porto? Where do I begin? First, the setting.... Nestled steeply into the northern banks of the River Douro, just inland from the Atlantic Ocean, Porto has a rustic, almost dilapidated feel. Walking about the narrow winding streets cut into the hillside, taking in the scent of salty air and occasionally, grilled sardines, it was simply magical in its presence. We found endless charm and it absolutely cast a spell over both of us as we wandered.
The old city dates back to medieval times and is a Unesco World Heritage site. And at the top of the hill sits Porto Cathedral (link) which broke ground more than 900 years ago in 1110 CE. The heart of Porto is about six kilometers (under four miles) from where the Douro flows into the Atlantic Ocean. Across the river is a separate city, Vila Nova de Gaia, or just Gaia as the locals call it. I am certain you are familiar with Port Wine, or at least the existence of it. Well.... Port wine comes from Porto (okay, it's actually located in warehouses across the river in Gaia).
It's wild to think about the history and the fact that Porto was an outpost of the Roman Empire nearly 2,000 years ago. The Celtic-Latin name, Portus Cale, has been referred to as the origin of the name Portugal, based on transliteration and oral evolution from Latin. Porto was in the epicenter of it all in that area of the Iberian Peninsula.
Okay, back to the point of this post. Both of us were immediately taken with Porto. It's not a very big city, only about 230k people in the city proper and 1.7 million in the metro area. Quite a bit smaller than any city I have lived in for the past fifty years. As previously noted, there is a slightly dilapidated feel to the city, yet the city exudes unending charm and character. In the not too distant past, the city was in decline, vacant houses were to be found everywhere. But that has shifted over the past 10-15 years as tourism has skyrocketed and the local economy has improved. There is still the occasional derelict vacant house, but there is an energy that very much feels like a city alive with possibility despite its small size.
This is Europe after all.... Cities have density and concentration in ways that American cities do not. A city of a quarter million people in the US feels like a bland suburb with endless stroads and parking lots. Porto is small, but is truly a heavy hitter when it comes to feeling cosmopolitan. The streets are filled with endless allure and the essence of a much bigger place.
Okay, again.... I can go on endlessly about Porto, but back to the point of this post. Our five days there in the fall of 2018 were just amazing. We left with much longing for a return. After flying back to Paris to spend a night and a morning flight back to the US, we looked back on our European adventure with much joy and happiness. But we again settled back into our normal lives in Philadelphia.
Looking back and thinking about the notion of living in Europe was but a pipe dream... Crazy right? That's not something we Americans do, right? Europe is for fancy people, we are just regular folk.
Or is it? Of course it is crazy....
We got our NIFs! (Número de Identificação Fiscal) This is your Portuguese Tax Payer ID, which is the first official step necessary to prepare for obtaining your visa. We held off until the new year, and just a few days in, it is a done deal. Next step is setting up our bank account with a Portuguese Bank. I will be posting more about this as we get further along.
We lost a full day in Paris due to a last minute flight cancelation. We also paid for a hotel room we didn’t use, and extra Lyft expenses because we had to go home and return the next night for the same flight.
Going forward I will be referring to Lisbon as Lisboa as this is how it is known there.
Neither of us handle hot weather well. Add humidity to it, and I wilt like a delicate flower. If you are curious about what the weather in Porto is, you can check it out here (and add your city to compare).
Laughing because I am retired, about to be more or less empty nest, and serious about changing up for a groovy old gal nestled safely & comfortably, place to be. Like magic, here is your journey. I am riveted.