We discovered a fair few deco style buildings in Porto – far too many for one post

On the way down from Trindad metro station two were in the one street:-

Indeed, adjacent to each other:-

The second one had a lovely balconied curved corner aspect:-

Not to mention a good cartuche above the doorway:-

This one was a bit further on:-

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:-

Concrete tower. This was just beyond the Ponte de São João. It looks a bit like an aircraft control tower but there wasn’t an airport nearby:-

Multi-chimneyed building:-

River bank Church. Note tiles on gable end facing the river:-

River boats, buildings and Igreja de Santa Clara Church on hill crest:-

Igreja de Santa Clara Church on centre-left of photo:-

Port warehouses and old style boats:

On the hill here can be seen a dome that we were told by the river-tour guide was the only building left from an Exhibition that had been held in Porto:-

Beyond the Arrábida Bridge before we had to turn back we got a view of the mouth of the river Douro as it meets the Atlantic:-

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 is a stunning city. I suppose it helped that the sun was shining – after all, even Cowdenbeath looks good in the sunshine – but the buildings were interesting. Not just São Bento Railway Station and the tiled churches but even generally “ordinary” buildings.

This was just down from the Great War Memorial. That tiled church is just to right of centre here:-

“Ordinary” building:-

Some of the streets were narrow though:-

And like all great cities, Porto has a river, The Douro:-

That way kind of led us out of town so we doubled back and found this way down to the river:-

Looking back up to city from bank of River Douro: