As well as fine buildings Bruges is replete with water and is sometimes known as The Venice of the North. I’ve never been to Venice but Bruges is certainly lovely, whatever.

The church in the background here is Bruges Cathedral, The Church of Our Lady:-

This shows the bridge from which the previous photo was taken:-

And this the view from the bridge to the other side:-

View of same building left above from the opposite canal bank:-

And round the corner:-

Canal and bridge:-

Canal:-

Another bridge:-

The Humber Bridge from King George Dock, Hull:-

The exit from King George Dock is through a sea lock. A very tight squeeze! Looking directly down the ship’s side:-

Other side of ship. Only centimetres of water between ship and lock side:-

The sea lock:-

Lock emptying:-

Nearly at level:-

Finally moving off:-

Humber Bridge from Humber Estuary:-

I never did see the KCom stadium but on the way out of the Humber I spotted the very distinctive Grimsby Dock Tower (picture from Wikipedia):-

Some way beyond it were the four floodlight pylons of what looked very like a football ground which I assume must have been Blundell Park, home of Grimsby Town FC, though it seems the ground is actually in Cleethorpes.

Porto’s beautifully elegant Arrábida Bridge (Ponte de Arrábida) carries motorway traffic over the River Douro on the western portion of the ring road around central Porto.

From the River Douro:-

Photo from Wikipedia (taken from the Vila Nova de Gaia bank of the river Douro):-

Statue on top of bridge pillar:-

Support pillars and statue:-

Close up on one of the bronze statues (from Wikipedia):-

Arrábida Bridge looking back towards Porto:-

Bank of River Douro, Porto, Dom Luís I Bridge to left of photo:-

Mosteiro da Serra do Pilar, Porto, Dom Luís I Bridge to extreme right:-

Yacht on river:-

Riverside buildings and river cruise boats:-

Another river cruise boat. Its inhabitants must have been visiting the port warehouses along the banks as they were in singing mood!:-

More buildings, Arrábida Bridge in background:-

I took this photo of the Arrábida Bridge (of which more later) from the road above the north bank of the River Douro before we found the starting point for the boat trip:-

And I took this zoom from the bank itself:-

River bank buildings hard by the Dom Luís I Bridge:-

Other river bank buildings:-

Heritage Tram, Porto:-

This bridge seemed to take a road out over the river,* presumably because the houses were right on the bank and allowed no room:-

Cable cars. They seemed to come down from near the Dom Luís I Bridge:-

*Edited to add:- it’s called the Viaduto do Caias das Pedras.

Back to more pleasant things.

This is the Ponte de São João or St John’s Bridge in Porto which appeared in the background of my photos of the Maria Pia Bridge and replaced it as a carrier of rail traffic across the River Douro.

It’s another elegant concrete structure:-

If you look to the left of the bridge support in the above photos you can see kilns. Those brown things look like kilns anyway. This closer view also shows the nice arches on the river embankment:-

Porto’s Maria Pia Bridge was built by Gustave Eiffel of Paris Tower fame in 1877. It used to carry the railway over the River Douro.

Behind it is the Ponte de São João or St John’s Bridge, which now carres the rail traffic.

Closer view:-

Maria Pia Bridge, Porto, Reverse View. Infante D Henrique Bridge in background:-

North support, Maria Pia Bridge:-

The Infante D Henrique Bridge is, according to this, a prestressed concrete deck-stiffened arch bridge. Completed in 2002. Elegant in its way.

This is situated between two iron arch bridges of which the Dom Luís I Bridge is the first. The second I’ll come on to in a later post.

You can find more images here.

Like the Infante D Henrique Bridge, the Freixo Bridge (Ponte do Freixo) carries road traffic. We saw it only from a distance as the boat had to turn back to make good time:-

There are more images of it here.

Porto is bridge heaven. There are six bridges across the River Douro of which the Dom Luís I Bridge (Ponte D. Luís I) is a two-deck bridge that carries the metro line I featured a few posts ago as well as road traffic on its lower level.

It being a very nice day we enquired about the length of the boat trip available on the nearer boat in the above pictures and having plenty of time decided to go for it.

From that vantage point we got closer to the north bridge support buttress:-

The one below is from the bridge’s Wikipedia page and the last photo is of a distant viaduct bridge somewhere across the Douro which I had taken on the way down to the river:-

Porto (Oporto) has a brilliant tram/metro system with six different lines (which sometimes meet up) and 80 or so stations.

It was the first time on the cruise we’d had to negotiate a foreign transport network, but the ticketing machine had an English option and was easy to use. The tickets were also cheap. For a fifteen or so stop ride into Porto from Matosinhos the cost was €2.60 return; for two!

The one we got on was heading for the home of Porto FC, Estádio do Dragão, but we had been told to get off at Trindad for the main part of the city so I never saw the stadium.

These photos were all taken on the way back when we had to make a change.

There are at least two types of tram on the Porto Metro system as seen here:-

The tram on the opposite track was going to the Estádio do Dragão. You can just about make that out on its destination board, even though it’s coupled up:-

Our final destination tram to Senhor de Matosinhos, though our stop was Matosinhos Sul:-

Porto’s metro system – it’s really a light rail – goes along streets, underground and even over the River Douro via the Dom Luis I bridge (Puente Don Luis I):-