Step into the magic Portal

IT takes a bit of nerve to walk across Porto’s Dom Luis I Bridge – but the view 44 metres above the river Douro makes it worth it.

British Airways’ new destination — flights from Gatwick launch this week on Thursday — sure is a looker.

On one side, there’s the bulky granite cathedral with a funicular railway racing up the hill. On the other, a cable car runs up to a castle-like monastery. And down below, boats carry barrels of the port wine the city is known for.

But Portugal’s second city has a more surprising claim to fame — it is where the Harry Potter books had their childhood.

JK Rowling began writing the boy wizard series in Manchester and London but taught English in Porto between 1991 and 1993 and many of the key chapters in her first book, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, were written there.

Her old haunts include Café Majestic, an old-school grand joint where waiters wear ridiculously formal uniforms and giant chandeliers hang from the ceiling.

Elsewhere, the Livraria Lello bookshop seems straight from Hogwarts. Its polished wooden bookcases climb the walls while a curving staircase in the middle is like a Hogwarts scene.

But Porto really casts its spell as you walk around the city.

It is easy to get lost here and that’s part of the fun. Lanes head in chaotic directions up and around steep hills.

What looks like a simple park can turn into a multi-level collection of clifftop gardens. And the bold modern architecture fits in happily with centuries-old churches and palaces.

Enter a few of those old buildings and you may get a surprise. By the river, World of Discoveries looks like just a terraced house.

But go in and it’s a modern museum about Portugal’s history of explorers.

Touchscreens bring to life 15th and 16th century voyages of discovery.

Vasco da Gama became the first to sail around the southern tip of Africa on the way to India, and Ferdinand Magellan reached the Pacific Ocean via the bottom of South America.

These adventurers left major legacies, including the food sort.

They brought chilli peppers from the Americas to India, giving rise to the curries we eat today.

The word vindaloo, for example, is from the Portuguese words for wine (vinho)and garlic (alho).

What is really unexpected about the World of Discoveries museum, though, is the boat trip.

Somehow, a theme park-style ride has been fitted in.

Boats pass through extravagant mock-ups of lands the explorers encountered, including Brazil, Timor, China and Japan.

But the African section is the most bizarre. Life-sized models of elephants and crocodiles mix with live, fluttering birds.

On the other side of the river is Vila Nova de Gaia, technically a different city but essentially Porto’s boozier twin — where the port wine lodges gather.

Brands such as Cockburn’s and Calem have been shipping to the rest of the world from here for centuries.

Most atmospheric is the Taylor’s lodge, where a tasting room sits next to a gorgeous rose garden. It’s a little slice of Britain on the Iberian Peninsula — and it turns out there is a big British influence on port, described in the lodge tours. In the 1700s, Britain was at war with France and needed a new source of wine. Merchants realised fortifying the Portuguese drops with brandy made them more suited to British tastes. And the port as we know it was born.

Highlight of the Taylor’s tour is the warehouse. Thousands of dusty barrels are stacked up and giant wood vats stand to the side.

The vats are for the fruitier, redder ruby port, the casks for the drier, lighter-coloured tawny. The amount of contact with the wood is the difference, apparently.

But the samples of both tasted magical.

GETTING/STAYING THERE: British Airways starts flights from Gatwick this Thursday, from £36 each way (ba.com/porto). The Eurostars das Artes hotel has 4* rooms from £42 a night (eurostarsdasartes.com).

OUT & ABOUT: No advance booking required for the World of Discoveries (worldofdiscoveries.com) and tours of Taylor’s port lodge (taylor.pt). Just show up during daytime hours. See uk.visitportoandnorth.travel.

[daqui]