A Porto Walkabout, Porto, Portugal

The second set of pictures from my February visit to Porto covers a number of key sights in the historic center of town, most of which are named in the WH inscription. You will probably find a bit of overlap between these pictures and the ones found in my first Porto retrospective, but this time I certainly stepped inside quite a few more places.

Starting with the church of Santa Clara, the 15th-century masterpiece that sports an interior so dazzling in its gold-plated design that individual details become kind of blurred. The overall impression is rather spectacular.

The complex also includes an impressive chapter house with yet more tiles and a remarkable coffered ceiling.

And, of course, there are elevated views. This is the westward perspective, looking over the cathedral plaza towards Igreja de São Lourenço and Palácio da Bolsa beyond.

The tower in the upper right corner of the shot above belongs to the Church of Our Lady of Victory (and behind it, you can just discern Ponte da Arrábida in the distance, which we saw much closer in the previous set). Changing the angle a bit shifts them to the left side and brings into view the highest point in all of Porto – already well familiar to us Torre dos Clérigos. ...... (follow the instructions below for accessing the rest of this article).