Porto is my favorite of the cities I’ve visited so far on this trip, narrowly edging València (I also like the fact that Porto’s city name doesn’t have any accents in it; I quickly tired of the extra typing necessary to spell València and Málaga). Here are my ratings:

• Rent: 4.1. The average monthly rent for a one-bedroom apartment in Porto’s city center is $622.66, making it slightly cheaper than València and Málaga.
• Walkability: 9. Drivers in Porto are a bit more aggressive than those in the Spanish cities I visited, but that’s the only quibble I have. There are plenty of sidewalks and many fully or semi-pedestrian-only streets. And what really gives Porto an edge in this category is how small and concentrated the city’s core is. Downtown — even including Vila Nova de Gaia across the river — is easily manageable on foot. For fit people like me who can manage steep hills and steps, anyway. There are some great, scenic running paths too.
  

  Rua das Flores, one of Porto’s many pedestrian-only streets (18 May 2018).

• Dating: 7. There are many beautiful women here, but the ladies of Spain (and of Washington, D.C., for that matter) I’d say have a slight edge (8) in this category.
• Food: 6. The food here in Porto is just as tasty as in Spain. Likewise, eating out, especially at an outdoor table in a touristy area, can get expensive. But groceries are cheap. In Porto more than anywhere else on my trip so far, I maxed out my strategy of picnic lunches and dinners. I’d buy really cheap sides like peanuts, potato chips, fruit, cookies, and baked goods, buy a main dish at a take-away place or a food truck, and munch on all that in a park, watching the world go by. Best of all, again like Spain, you can buy a decent bottle of wine for under €2 ($2.33) at the supermarket (port costs a little more), or a four- or six-pack of craft-quality beer for under $1 a bottle. The latter in particular is well worth it. Beer is relatively reasonably priced at restaurants and beer tents, say €1.50 ($1.75) for a plastic cup or small glass, but there’s usually just one choice, and it’s the local Budweiser equivalent (Super Bock, in Porto’s case). “Witches’ piss,” as my grandma used to say. God bless the Catholics — I can buy a four-pack of Super Bock’s “American Amber” at the grocery store for €3 ($3.50), an actual decent beer (it tastes like Sam Adams’), and sit in a public park for a couple of hours drinking all four of them. No asinine Protestant hang-ups about drinking in public, buying alcohol on Sunday, and other such rubbish here. Speaking (still more) of alcohol, Portuguese vinho verde (“green wine”) is excellent. It’s called “green” not because of its color (it comes in white and rosé varieties), but because it’s relatively young wine, not aged very long. The fermentation process produces a slight fizziness that I like. And it’s dirt cheap. And it’s tart — a good counterpoint to syrupy-sweet (but potent! 20% alcohol) tawny or ruby port. I drank one bottle of good beer, a small bottle (I re-used little 175 ml screw-top wine bottles from the supermarket) of vinho verde, and a small bottle of port at every picnic lunch. Bliss!
  

  As befits Porto’s blue-collar reputation, its signature dish is the Francesinha (“little French girl”), a triple-decker roast pork and beef sandwich with the cheese on top, served swimming in gravy and usually with french fries on the side. Delicious! (17 May 2018).

  

  Here’s a side view of the same sandwich. There’s often a fried egg in there too, hiding among the meat. I ate two francesinhas in Porto, four days apart. I needed that much time to digest all that meat and for my arteries to unclog (17 May 2018).

  

  Sunday picnic in the park, 20 May: A “pizza cone” I bought from a food truck, a cup of the local swill, Super Bock beer, and some sides I bought for pennies (Euro cents, rather) at the supermarket (20 May 2018).

• Ambience: 7. This is the most fascinating thing about Porto, in my opinion. Many cities — Washington, D.C. is an excellent case in point — have “up and coming” or “gentrifying” neighborhoods where decrepit, boarded-up, graffiti-sprayed buildings stand in close proximity to slick, pricey boutiques or wine bars. Porto takes all that to an entirely new level, particularly since so many of the decaying piles are centuries old. And the natives don’t even bat an eyelash, passing by multiple slices of utter ruin interspersed with chic glamor in every urban block.
  

  If this were in the U.S., the homeowners’ association would definitely be after the owners about replacing the roof already. Certainly well before trees took root and birds built nests in there (20 May 2018).

• Transit: 7.0. Porto is so walkable that I confess I only took public transportation once, and that was on the subway ride to the airport on my way out. But see, even that is useful information — not every subway system runs all the way out to the airport! So good on you, Porto.
  

  The Porto metro. I had to wait 20 minutes on a Wednesday late morning for my train to the airport, which is less than ideal. But it is a clean and tidy system. I do think it’s poetic that my last sight in downtown Porto should be a gleaming new train juxtaposed with a fresh, juicy puddle of vomit (see bottom right). Who is puking in a subway station at 10am on a Wednesday morning? I don’t know, but clearly someone in Porto managed it (23 May 2018).

• Health care: 6.8.
• Nature: 4. While there don’t appear to be any large parks or wilderness areas within easy range of Porto, you can certainly see plenty of places where nature is reclaiming what civilization wrested from it long ago.
  

  The trees and weeds of this hillside are about to gobble up this building in the foreground (22 May 2018).

• Internet: 7.
• Crime: 5.8. The crime rate in Porto is similar to that in València and Málaga. But Portuguese cops don’t pack nearly as much heat as their Spanish peers. Most carry only batons. Maybe one in three has a sidearm in a holster. That’s about it.
• Language: 5. Learning Portuguese would be an uphill battle for me, as I discussed earlier. It does not sound like Spanish. At all. But I will say that more people speak English here, and speak it well, than in Spain.
• Bikeability: 4. Porto’s hills would make cycling a real challenge. Which I think is kind of the point for the cyclists I did spot here — all were of the spandex-wearing, logo-clad, serious road biker type, rather than the more casually dressed bicycle commuter. Probably for this reason, I didn’t see any dedicated bike lanes in Porto, nor does there appear to be a city bike-share program. Cheap three-speed (or one-speed) bike-share bikes wouldn’t have enough low gears for the uphills, nor would they have enough brakes for the downhills.
  

  This guy on the right is a serious cyclist. Look at the spandex. Look at the logos. He is wearing the instantly identifiable look-at-me-I’m-fitter-than-you outfit of the triathlete (19 May 2018).

• Friendliness: 6. Pretty similar to Spain, other than slightly more aggressive (but nowhere near U.S. East Coast-level-aggressive) drivers. A lady in the supermarket helped me when I had trouble unspooling a bag from the dispenser in the produce section. I look for that kind of thing when compiling my score for this category.
• Pollution: 6.7.