Porto vital statistics:

• Population: 2.4 million (metro)
• Latitude & longitude: 41˚ 9′ 44″ N, 8˚ 37′ 19″ W
• January average temperature: High 13.8˚C (56.8˚F), low 5.2˚C (41.4˚F)
• July average temperature: High 25.3˚C (77.5˚F), low 15.9˚C (60.6˚F)
• Time zone: GMT+1 (5 hours ahead of U.S. EDT)
• Language: Portuguese
• Currency: Euro (€)
• Exchange rate: US$1=€0.85
• Average monthly rent for a one-bedroom apartment in the city center: $624.84

I was not initially smitten with Porto. Arriving around 8pm on a Thursday night, it looked a bit sketchy to me. (Admittedly, this time of year, it’s still light at 8pm. Although in Porto, at the eastern edge of the British time zone, sunset in mid- to late-May is around 8:45pm, about an hour earlier than in Salamanca, at the western edge of the Central European time zone, where there’s still some twilight at 10pm. Which is to say, it was getting dark when I arrived).

But I’m not usually in a charitable mood on first arriving in a new city. I think one reason I never traveled all that much, even when I lived overseas, is that I hate being in transit. I feel anxious and vulnerable when I’m carrying all my most important possessions on my person. Once I’m settled in my home base, wherever it is, I’m usually fine. For the same reason, I don’t like manic tours where I’m sleeping in a different city every night. Even on this trip, where I’m spending 5-7 nights at all 18 of my main destinations, when the time comes to leave, I feel like my stay has been too brief.

This time, seven or so hours of bus travel from central Spain to coastal Portugal on 17 May 2018 was what wore me out. Not that the journey was all bad. The scenery outside was spectacular. The Spanish countryside is lovely — rolling hills, farmland, every once and a while the ruins of a castle or fortified manor house on a lonely hill. But when you cross the border into Portugal (no passport check required, thanks to Spain and Portugal’s membership in the Schengen treaty), the rolling hills turn into low mountains, and the highways offer vistas looking down into rocky valleys. And for most of the journey, I sat next to a beautiful blond Swedish surfer girl half my age, so the inside of the bus was looking good too.

Still, travel days always wear me out. I’m tired and cranky and just want to get to my lodgings and unpack. And in Porto, I stayed in an Airbnb-style room in a private home, which means there’s no front desk I can just walk up to. I have to coordinate ahead of time with the owner to arrange the key hand-off, and there’s always the possibility that something will go wrong and I’ll be stuck outside, ringing the doorbell with nobody at home. With these things on my mind, I didn’t care for the short walk from the bus station in Porto to my room. In many neighborhoods, especially at night, Porto is a dump. There are so many abandoned, graffiti-covered, ruinous hulks of buildings here. It certainly didn’t look promising.

Despite the seedy, desolate look of my surroundings, once I was basically settled in my room — in an old, partially renovated Portuguese rowhouse with very spartan furnishings but all the basics of bedroom, bathroom, and kitchen covered — I took a short walk to get oriented to the neighborhood. Just a few steps outside my lodgings, I beheld this view:

But still, juxtaposed with all this loveliness, there was a run-down RV parked by the river overlook with some local teens and twenty-somethings hanging out outside drinking and smoking pot (Portugal effectively decriminalized all drug use in 2001). There were moldering ruins of buildings and other structures covered in graffiti. And feral cats (or, perhaps, extreme free-range pet cats) roamed around, occasionally getting into loud, yowling alley battles, which then set all the dogs in the vicinity to barking, first at the cats, then at each other.

All in all, I found the contrast between the beauty and the blight strangely compelling. I was very much looking forward to exploring the city more thoroughly on my first full day in Porto.