Porto hums with the excitement of people from around the world about to set off on the Camino walk to Galicia. The city slopes steeply down to the Douro river, with bridges over towards the port houses of Vila Nova de Gaia on the opposite bank.
We were there for a different journey: a joint celebration of three friends’ birthdays.
It’s slightly surreal leaving the children at home, but they countered my remote mothering by sending a pre-emptive strike of daily photos of themselves, together, doing wholesome activities and eating (mostly) balanced homemade meals.
As we were travelling light I just brought gouache paint and pencils (no oils, no easel). On reaching our accommodation, I was itching to explore draw... cue 20 minutes of moving increasingly large items of furniture into the (tiny) bathroom, until a makeshift easel was constructed: a bench on its side enveloping the sink, and a bathmat propped on top, with rolled towels for tilt. It had something in common with the dens my we used to build on rainy days in the school holidays, before mobile phones.
An hour or so later, Marcus checked by to see if I was having ‘toilet difficulties’, only to find me like this:
I do love a good cemetery, the local Cemetery of Prado do Repouso is in the Association of Significant Cemeteries of Europe. You can look through the windows of family mausoleums to see shrines, photos, crypts and coffins. The outsides are so individual, with very different designs and decoration. I find such connection between generations, and engagement with mortality to be a beautiful and healthy mindset missing from our culture. The Camino has been walked from Porto since at least the 12th Century - so it was lovely to think that people buried there may have walked it themselves.
Porto has magnificent bridges. In fact it is twinned with Bristol, bridges being a noted parallel (ours was designed by Brunel, theirs by Eiffel). Back home, Marcus is always advising me to ‘paint the bridge’, in the hope I might produce something marketable. So as a special treat for him, I found a terrace cafe above the main riverside drag with a view encompassing 3 bridges. We strung out lunch, drawing and reading. Once the background was complete, Marcus modelled for a few minutes, then I took a reference photo so he could return to his book. I added him into the picture, losing his squint (into the sun), and fractionating an airy molotov pudding to make it last as long as possible.
No trip to Porto is complete without multiple pastel de nata, best served fresh as a daisy. The place to see and be seen is the Majestic Café. We went early to miss the queue. I hadn’t intended to draw there, but seeing the interior it really was impossible to resist. Just like the bridge sketch, I marked out a couple of key points then tried to keep it honest, filling in the detail like a jigsaw. After such a complicated interior, doing a series of mini-portraits for the lower third of the drawing was fun. There were some brilliant looking characters there, and the waiting staff also. As we got up to go, a group on the adjacent table revealed they’d been watching me sketch, and asked to buy it. They were four Camino-walkers, so I was delighted to know it would be with them en route to the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela. Even more so to learn they were planning to listen to my TEDx talk on the way.
On our last full day, we were about to set off for a late lunch when I received an ‘emergency briefing’ on the group chat - Derek had gone rogue and visited the municipal art gallery. He’d stumbled on an installation ‘Body Culture’ by Lithuanian artist Augustas Serapinas. There is a version of this in Nottingham until the end of this week. There were easels within the artwork, where you could sit and draw. So an hour later I was on the bus, sketchbook in hand. It was busy in the ‘Jardins do Palácio de Cristal’ park, as there was a huge book festival going on. We headed to the gallery, the steward gave me a lanyard (Derek had kindly paved the way), and I perched happily at one of the easels provided.
When it was time to go, I left the artwork for the communal wall display (as per instructions). By the time we got the bus (see Derek in celebrity bus queue below) across the Douro to the port-tasting rendez-vous, I realised I was VERY hungry and thirsty. Luckily there were snacks, and a spittoon (I don’t drink alcohol). I found that when assessing a glass of port, smelling gives 90% of the information, looking gives 5%, and having it in your mouth the final 5%.
After that we gathered in a small park to watch the sunset, and headed for our final meal - a curry, as chosen by Birthday Boy Derek. At some point during the trip we may have graced a nightclub. Credit to Annabelle for summarising our behaviour. The next morning, just time to visit the market for souvenirs, only to discover that Natalie fits in a sardine can… who knew?!
While we were larking around like teenagers, our actual teenager Tom (15 today) started the new academic year, and Leon drove Izzi to start her final year at university. How the worm has turned.
Thanks for reading, I hope this gave you a taste of Porto without being too gloaty.
Gxxx