Portugal: Forget the revolution, just pass the port

Making his own voyage of discovery in Portugal's Oporto, Jeremy Atiyah gets high on churches, drunk on azulejos, and very knowledgeable about port...

"Oporto, a tumultuous city rising from the great, grey Douro, inspires grand gestures, passionate prose, tender poetry, lyrical painting, political dreaming and revolutionary action..."

THAT IS how Marion Kaplan, in her book The Portuguese, described it and, as I stepped onto the pompous little red carpet of the Hotel de Paris - 150 years old if it was a day - the bohemian in me instantly agreed. My single room cost less than pounds 10 with breakfast. It was two minutes' walk from the city centre, it contained furniture weighing several tons and a museum-piece for a wash-basin (circa 1860?). Breakfast took place in a vast room with ornamental wood panels on the ceiling and seating for a hundred, but only three actual guests.

Having checked in, it was hard to imagine how anyone could ever check out.

Strolling into town, I stopped at the Brasileira Cafe - another civic antique - for coffee and sticky croissants. The walls were marble-clad and decorated in fancy bronze. To judge by the depth of pigeon-droppings on the overhead awning, I could well believe that the elderly gentlemen at the bar were discussing the 1822 constitution.

Or were they? This may have been a political city but, every time I turned a corner, I saw a Baroque facade at the top of a hill. The first appeared behind a palm tree: the outer walls of the Igreja do Carmo were clad entirely in azulejos, shining blue-and-white tiles; inside, effigies of bloodied Christs and melancholy Virgins hung in dark niches. For interior decor though, the winner was the Igreja Sao Francisco, where the ceiling and columns were a writhing mass of saints and cavorting cherubs in gold-leaf. The whole church seemed to have been underwater for centuries, then brought up, encrusted.

Getting high on constant churches, I walked up the hill to the Igreja Dos Clerigos, a skinny specimen squeezed in between markets. Its 18th- century tower of cut granite - once the tallest in the country - is a mandatory climbing exercise for tourists. I made it to the top for views over the chaos of narrow red roofs tumbling down to the River Douro.

From down there, the view was of balconies and fancy window-lintels; from up here, it was of palm trees and cats slinking about the roof-tops. Traffic disappeared under the sound of donging bells and the deep-throated shouts of strawberry sellers.

Was this modern Europe? Back on street-level, I passed the Casa Oriental: a shop specialising in the national passion of bacalhao, or dried, salted cod. The whole shop-window was hung with off-white slabs, including some monstrous pieces a metre long. The smell was of clean wood shavings and brine, pure salt and adventure.

No wonder they call their cod fiel amigo, or "faithful friend". That evening, I would enjoy bacalhao for the first time in my life, a huge piece of filleted fish, baked with onions, olives and potatoes - a dish born somewhere off the icy waters of Newfoundland. Portuguese food is magic: every mouthful carries a resonance of Prince Henry the Navigator, of faraway shores and the great age of discovery. Caldo verde, that cabbagey soup, thick with potatoes, was also born in the New World.

As well as imported dishes, you would hope that a country obsessed with exploration would produce good railway stations. It does: the Sao Bento railway station attracts not drunks, but tourists, aiming their cameras at acres of azulejos, scenes of old Portugal from cattle carts and vineyards to battling kings.

The city also has a way with bridges. In the old days, a few steps to the south of Oporto's cathedral - a dour Romanesque affair commanding the heights - would have toppled you down the precipice of a gorge. Today, it will bring you out onto the upper level of the Dom Luis I Bridge.

Of the five bridges spanning the river in the Oporto area, this is the most central and most spectacular. Its high arch of grey iron girders carries two roads: one at roof-top level, and the other miles in the sky. Walking across the upper level, you run the gauntlet of cross-winds, vertigo and coaches thundering past your elbow. Scary, maybe, but worth it for the views over the port houses of Vila Nova de Gaia on the south bank, and the city of Oporto on the north bank - where mediaeval streets trickle down to the waterfront area of Ribeira.

Ribeira has been memorably described as the guts of Oporto: unlovely but essential. I came across a gigantic leg of the Dom Luis I bridge stomping between chaotic self-built structures of red roofs, cement, wood and cracked tiles, on slopes as steep as ladders. The effect was not unlike a Rio favela.

A potential hotbed for political dreaming and revolutionary action? Not exactly. The waterfront itself comprises tame restaurants, cafes and vegetable stores under stone arches. Up above, I saw jumbled terraces hung about by miles of laundry.

Not that Oporto is all shabbiness and genteel decay. From over the river, it produces port, the drink that has entertained the British ruling class for centuries. The Douro River valley, snaking its way from the mountains of Spain down to the sea at Oporto, is excellent grape-growing terrain, and the river itself a perfect road: the full barrels were brought down to Oporto in gondola-like boats, a few of which are still anchored in the river for the benefit of tourists (nowadays, the wine is carried down the valley in stainless-steel road tankers). The view, even today, over Vila Nova de Gaia is completely dominated by the warehouses of the old port companies, their names emblazoned across the long red roofs. Names like Taylor, Cockburn and Sandeman may not sound very Portuguese, but nor should they. After all, it was the English who developed port production here (Liverpudlian merchants are thought to have invented the drink by putting brandy as a preservative into wine barrels for the trip back to England).

A free degustatory tour of the port companies is an essential part of the Oporto experience. I visited Ferreira, and was led past piles of dusty barrels, sniffing the clean, sour aroma of fermenting wine. The company guide bombarded visitors with statistics: the giant barrels alone, we were told, held 70,000 litres, and the cellars as a whole, a cool 11,000,000. The barrels themselves could be up to 100 years old before they were sold to the Scots, who used them for storing whisky.

Then there were the typically arcane protocols surrounding the consumption of any prestigious wine: how much time is spent in the barrel and how much in the bottle? Is the wine made from grapes of a single vintage, or is it a blend of vintages? Should the bottle be upright or flat? Is it a dessert wine or an aperitif? Is it a ruby, tawny or white? After your tour comes the tasting: every visitor gets a mandatory couple of glasses, a red and a white. The ports are syrupy and aromatic and all the better for being drunk in a cellar.

Having tasted the port, the next thing is to explore the Douro River valley itself, where the grapes are grown. This is not the intrepid experience that it used to be. One of the early British port pioneers, Joseph Forrester, who spent a dozen years refining the drink and mapping the terrain, was drowned in the river in 1855. Even Dona Antonia Adelaide Ferreira, of the famous port family, had a narrow escape in a boating accident. Today, now that several locks have been built, touring the river is big business. Every weekend, boats loaded with lunching guests set off from Oporto on their way to the centres of wine production.

Alternatively, as I did, you can take the train, trundling up the slow way to the village of Penhao. On the way out of Oporto, all I noticed was the construction - EU- financed - of new roads, new rail lines, new stations and new bridges. But after an hour or so, the rail line finally joined the Douro, a deep blue ribbon winding between green mountains. Carefully trimmed vines lined neat terraces propped up by stone walls. Whitewashed farmhouses dotted the hill face.

But after Regua, the soil became chalkier, the terraces more austere. The whole grape-growing process acquired a scientific edge, replacing the overgrown lower river and the tumultuous, passionate, revolutionary city of Oporto.

This, instead, was the heart of port country - tamed by centuries of English control.

oporto fact file

Getting there

The author flew on a British Airways scheduled service to Oporto from London Gatwick, operated by the independent carrier GB Airways. The current BA World Offer, bookable up to June 10, for travel to end of June, is pounds 132 + pounds 19 tax for mid-week travel (pounds 142 for weekends). Call BA on 0345 222111 to book.

The author stayed in the Residencial Paris at 27 Rua da Fabrica, tel: 00352 2 2073140, fax 00352 2 2073149. Prices for a single room with breakfast start from 2,700 escudos (about pounds 9).

For port-tasting in Vila Nova de Gaia just walk into the houses and wait for the next tour in your language, which will not usually be more than a few minutes away (though most close for long lunch breaks, and do not open on Sundays).

The author travelled up the Douro river by slow train from Sao Bento Station; the fare is about pounds 3 each way. Alternatively, various day trips up the Douro River can be arranged in Oporto. A common option as offered by Douro Cruises (Rua de S. Francisco, 4; Tel: 00 352 2 339 3950) is to take a cruise up the river as far as Regua, and a return on the train. Lots of port-tasting takes place en route, and breakfast and lunch are also served. The all-in price is 15,000 escudos (about pounds 50). Endouro Turismo (Tel: 00 352 2 3956417) offers a similar trip, but is slightly cheaper. These trips only take place between March and October, and only at weekends.

The Rough Guide to Portugal (pounds 10.99) and the Lonely Planet Guide (pounds 10.99) both have useful sections on Oporto. The very helpful Portuguese tourist board in the UK can be reached on 0171 494 1441.