{"id":3758,"date":"2015-11-20T19:26:42","date_gmt":"2015-11-20T19:26:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thedaydreamdiaries.com\/?p=3758"},"modified":"2015-11-20T20:07:09","modified_gmt":"2015-11-20T20:07:09","slug":"porto","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thedaydreamdiaries.com\/porto\/","title":{"rendered":"Taking in Porto"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"IMG_4770\"After spending a few days in Lisbon<\/a> and a day in the Douro Valle<\/a>y- we were onto the next….PORTO!\u00a0 The city of Porto is\u00a0set on a magical\u00a0river with a quaint and colourful old town sitting right along it, tons of amazing architecture, great food (and port!), scenic bridges and more. It has all the right ingredients for a place to visit for a few days!\u00a0\u00a0Although we loved all of these things-what we loved most was the vibe- it had a very\u00a0mysterious feel to it. You didn’t know what to expect when you turned\u00a0around the corners.<\/p>\n

Every building- almost untouched from its original settings- looked like it had a story and it made sense that JK Rowlings- author of Harry Potter- used to live here. The bookstore Livraria Lello Bookshop<\/a>\u00a0was one of the places that inspired her while writing the famous novel\u00a0and the famous library at Hogwarts was\u00a0modeled after this one . The bookstore where she regularly visited\u00a0– made me want to strap on a cape, pull out a wand and get lost in allll the books there.<\/p>\n

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Porto\u2019s heart\u00a0and soul lies in their\u00a0hilly streets, smoky espresso cafes, glasses of port\u00a0but also in their art and design museums. One of our favourite things we did was visit the Serralves Museum<\/a>-a contemporary art museum ( photos below) where we were blown away by the different exhibits but also left feeling inspired. “We should do a window like that\u00a0in our house”- were some of the silly things we were saying and<\/em> believing at the time but nonetheless- we were moved! I highly recommend paying a visit here…even if you aren’t into art- the grounds itself are impressive. And yes- I was told more than once- not to touch the artsy balls below. Too tempting, Mr. Security Guard!<\/p>\n

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Here are some places I recommend getting into if you are there..<\/p>\n

Where to Eat<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

DOP Restaurant<\/a>\u00a0which stands for\u00a0\u2018tasting and daring in Oporto\u2019, is a gourmet restaurant owned by the chef Rui Paula, who combines traditional Portuguese cuisine with international flavor. The restaurant is located in\u00a0Pal\u00e1cio das Artes (Palace of Arts), an original building from the 14th century, which used to be a youth foundation but recently was reconstructed and reopened as a restaurant. \u00a0Small portions full of SO. MUCH. FLAVOUR.\"IMG_5390\"<\/p>\n

Where to Stay<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Hotel da M\u00fasica<\/a> offers a 24-hour reception\u00a0and is attached to the\u00a0Part of Mercado do Bom Sucesso building ( so many cool places to eat) and also steps away from Casa de Musica which is pretty much the coolest building one can ever imagine that hosts live concernts, shows and has one of the best rooftops in the city. The rooms at the hotel are modern and sleek and you can even hear some live music if you open your windows at night!<\/p>\n

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\"Spain-Portugal-0391\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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Where to Shop<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

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A Vida Portuguesa s<\/a>ells a random assortment of gifts \u2014 on the ground floor, you\u2019ll find cotton purses, handpainted mirrors, and wacky kitchen utensils.\u00a0But upstairs, it\u2019s like stepping into a twilight zone where retro styles dominate.<\/p>\n

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To visit the Porto-\u00a0please visit Visit Porto <\/a>for more info and tips!<\/h2>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After spending a few days in Lisbon and a day in the Douro Valley- we were onto the next….PORTO!  The city of Porto is set on a magical river with a quaint and colourful old town sitting right along it, tons of amazing architecture, great food (and port!), scenic bridges and more. It has all the right ingredients for a place to visit for a few days!  Although we loved all of these things-what we loved most was the vibe- it had a very mysterious feel to it. You didn’t know what to expect when you turned around the corners. Every building- almost untouched from its original settings- looked like it had a story and it made sense that JK Rowlings- author of Harry Potter- used to live here. The bookstore Livraria Lello Bookshop was one of the places that inspired her while writing the famous novel and the famous library at Hogwarts was modeled after this one . The bookstore where she regularly visited – made me want to strap on a cape, pull out a wand and get lost in allll the books there.      Porto’s heart and soul lies in their hilly streets, smoky espresso cafes, glasses of port but also in their art and design museums. One […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3759,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_vp_format_video_url":"","_vp_image_focal_point":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,53,19],"tags":[55,76,75,20],"class_list":["post-3758","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-destinations","category-europe","category-portugal","tag-europe","tag-hotel-de-musica","tag-porto","tag-portugal"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedaydreamdiaries.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3758","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedaydreamdiaries.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedaydreamdiaries.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedaydreamdiaries.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedaydreamdiaries.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3758"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/thedaydreamdiaries.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3758\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3864,"href":"https:\/\/thedaydreamdiaries.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3758\/revisions\/3864"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedaydreamdiaries.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3759"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thedaydreamdiaries.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedaydreamdiaries.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thedaydreamdiaries.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}