Rua

My street … Rua de Serralves
4 December, 2018 / ,

I live on a street where the past is giving way to the future. A narrow, old, somewhat run-down street, typical of the old Porto. But, a modern urbanization, superbly placed on a wide and green ground, was imposed in the place where formerly was the old Wool Factory of Lordelo. There, in this place and still taking advantage of some structures of the facade of the old building of the early nineteenth century, there is now a different way of living. It is no longer the artisans who move there to work in the factory, but the families or early couples who live there.

From the windows of my house or down at the gardens, I see a brook. Rare thing! Ribeira da Granja, as it is called, is the largest water trail that crosses the city of Porto. And it brings a very special charm to all of its surroundings. There is the sound of running water and birds are seen laying on the grass where many children play.

The street is dotted with small shops, cafes and grocery stores, small dwellings, which bring a large influx of people. As it rises, the street is improving, with more modern recently built housing, until you reach the splendorous that is Serralves. The entrance to Casa de Serralves, an icon of the city, almost at the intersection of Rua de Serralves and Avenida Marechal Gomes da Costa, appears, imposing and inviting a visit.

 

This is my street.

Praça Gomes Teixeira (Praça dos Leões)
12 October, 2018 / , ,

The centre of Porto’s student life, this square is named after an illustrious mathematician, but it is the lions of its imposing fountain that have made it known.

The official designation of this square in Baixa do Porto is homage to Gomes Teixeira, a mathematician who was the first rector of the University of Porto. However, it is best known for the Praça dos Leões (Lions Square), due to the granite and bronze fountain that exists in the central zone.

In fact, this place dates much earlier than the fountain and even the university itself. According to legend, in the 12th century, the first king of Portugal, D. Afonso Henriques and his wife, D. Mafalda, were on their way to Guimarães when the queen fell on a precipice. In that moment of distress, each element of the couple invoked a saint. Grateful for having rid themselves of the danger, they built chapels in that place, Nossa Senhora da Graça and São Miguel-o-Anjo (already demolished).

Already in the XVII century the Convento dos Carmelitas (where the GNR barracks is nowadays) and colleges where orphans were housed, which led to this place was also known as Largo do Carmo or Campo dos Meninos  Órfãos. Later, and because flour and bread were sold there, it was also known as Praça do Pão (Bread Square) or Praça da Feira do Pão (Bread Market Square). Already in the XIX century, it became Praça dos Voluntários da Rainha, thus honoring the liberal battalion of the Portuguese army that had occupied the Convento dos Carmelitas.

When the University of Porto was created, it was renamed Praça da Universidade and, later, Praça Gomes Teixeira.

The current building of the Rectory of the University of Porto was built throughout the nineteenth century and it also served as the Faculty of Sciences and Engineering. The square then gained a new life; the presence of the students was decisive for the emergence of cafes, such as the mythical Café Âncora d’Ouro (better known as O Piolho), bookstores and other services linked to academic life. The shops and warehouses nearby also created, along with the people of Porto and who visited the city, the habit of shopping in this area.

Nowadays it is one of the main places in Porto for nightlife activities and it continues to be a meeting point in the main moments of the academic life of the city, such as Queima das Fitas or the Reception to the new students of the University of Porto.

The churches of Carmo and Carmelitas, separated by the narrowest house of the city, are another point of interest in the place.

 

The fountain

Imposing, this emblematic source was commissioned by the Companhia das Águas do Porto in 1882, with the purpose of supplying water to that area of ​​the city. Built in France by the Compagnie Générale des Eaux pour l’Etranger, it is 8 meters in diameter and 6 meters high, consisting of a granite tank and a central bronze fountain with four winged lions and seated at the ends. Two cups on the top complete the decoration of this fountain, once protected by an iron fence.

Rua Costa Cabral
11 September, 2018 / ,

The most extensive street in Porto begins in Marquês and goes on to the Circunvalação road practically in a straight line, one of the limits of the city. A long drive with lots to discover.

Built in a predominantly rural area of ​​the city, this street still plays an important role in the flow to the eastern part of the city, but also in access to neighbouring counties. Already in the nineteenth century, people and goods passed here on their way to Guimarães, Braga or Penafiel.

The Rua de Costa Cabral stood out from the old streets not only by its more regular geometry, but also by the paving. It was baptized with the name of Costa Cabral, minister who was not popular in Porto. Therefore, the inhabitants of the city did not adopt its title, preferring to call it Estrada da Cruz das Regateiras. The cross to which the name refers to is currently at the back of the church of Paranhos. Previously it was in a square where there was a post of collection of taxes on the goods that entered the city; the women who brought their products to sell in Porto were known for their haggling because they fought the tax authorities the price of the tax to be paid. In fact, when Costa Cabral ceased to be minister, the inhabitants of Porto destroyed the sign that indicated the name of the street.

The name was eventually accepted and the remnants of rural life disappeared. Today the Rua de Costa Cabral is mainly a commercial area with more traditional shops such as grocery stores or formal clothes rental shops, to restaurants and other businesses linked to tourism.

Points of interest

In the four kilometres that separate Marquês and Areosa, several buildings of different eras and styles deserve a closer look:

  • 114 – Centro de Caridade de Nossa Senhora do Perpétuo Socorro. Building by the architect Luís Cunha, example of renovation in religious art in the 50’s.
  • 196 – The former Palacete do Lima is a 19th century building that houses the headquarters of Académico Futebol Clube, a historic club in the city that still remains in operation. There is a bar open to the public.
  • 220 – Old Tobacco Factory A Lealdade. This building stands out for its lively yellow tones but also for its huge iron sunroom.
  • Number 323 – Modernist building from the 1940s where Cinema Júlio Dinis worked. It’s now a nightclub.
  • 716 – Casa-Museu Fernando de Castro – former residence of a poet and collector; has an important collection of Portuguese paintings and several examples of gilded carving.
  • Along the Rua de Costa Cabral there are several residential buildings dating from the 19th century, many of them with tiled facades with details that deserve attention on the balconies, doors and windows.
  • 740/760 – Costa Cabral Block – Residential building from the 50’s, designed by the architect Viana de Lima. Classified as Property of Public Interest.
  • 1121 – Hospital Conde Ferreira – was the first psychiatric hospital in Portugal. Inaugurated in 1883.

Rua da Picaria 
20 July, 2018 /

It began by being linked to horses. Then, it was once a street sought after by those who wanted to buy furniture and is now a cosmopolitan place where it is possible to find restaurants with foods from all over the world.

The designation of picaria seems to be prior to the street itself and may indicate that in that place, or in the vicinity, there was a stable. The street only began to be planned in the eighteenth century, at a time when this area of ​​the city, still quite rural, was urbanized and modernized.

Paved in the late 1930s, this street was occupied for decades by cabinetmakers and small furniture stores. In the absence of shop windows, small bookcases and wooden benches often occupied the narrow sidewalks. It was also in these carpenters that the Portuguese who, in the 19th and 20th centuries, immigrated to Brazil in search of work and wealth used pine boxes.

The area is also known for its lively nights due to the existence of two famous cabarets. The opening of the Rua de Ceuta, already in the twentieth century, led to some houses nearby being demolished. Travessa da Picaria disappeared, but the street remained until the present day.

Currently, Rua da Picaria is one of the liveliest places in Porto given the great diversity of restaurants and different gastronomic options.

Curiosities:

The Anglo Portuguese Telephone Company settled in Rua da Picaria and built a building there that still belongs to a communications company. The red telephone booths, which still exist in some streets of Porto, are a trace of this Portuguese-British company.

In the number 49 grew Francisco Sá Carneiro, Prime Minister of Portugal who died in 1980. Across the street was his law firm.

At the corner of Rua da Picaria and Rua de Ceuta there was once the Court where the writer Camilo Castelo Branco was tried for the crime of adultery. His relationship with Ana Plácido, the wife of a prosperous businessman, shocked the nineteenth-century Porto society.

Rua de Santa Catarina – Shopping and fun
18 April, 2018 /

It is the ideal street for shopping. With hundreds of shops and constant animation, it has many places not to be missed.

Rua de Santa Catarina has a length of 1500 meters in downtown Porto; it is the favorite place for Porto locals and tourists to shop. Part of this street is pedestrian, which makes it the perfect place to do window-shopping, buying from clothing to traditional Portuguese products or even handicrafts in stalls placed along the sidewalks. It has also become a place of permanent animation, thanks to the many street artists who perform every day for those who pass by.

From the more traditional shops to the international brands, it provides the consumer with a variety to satisfy all tastes. The cafes, restaurants and terraces allow you to rest from your walk or feel an increasingly cosmopolitan atmosphere.

Due to its central location, it is also the ideal starting point to discover Porto.

Points of interest

Café Majestic – Opened in 1921, it is the most famous café in Porto. An exquisite space full of glamour, with a unique decoration where the mirrors, the imposing entrance and the interior patio stand out.

Capela das Almas/Chapel of the Souls – Built at the beginning of the 18th century, this chapel stands out for its façade covered with tiles, representing steps of the life of St. Francis of Assisi and St. Catherine.

Decoration Arte Nova – the facades of Ourivesaria Reis & Filhos (Jeweller) and the Latin Library Bookstore, both next to the Church of Santo Ildefonso, are decorated with cast iron sculptures in Art Nouveau style

Via Catarina – housed in a building that once served as headquarters for a newspaper, this shopping center, in addition to numerous shops, it has a restaurant area that resembles a typical street in the city

Rua Sá da Bandeira
7 November, 2017 / , , ,

From the little farms and alleys a cosmopolitan street was born.

Today it is one of the most central and busiest streets of Porto, but it was a place formerly occupied by agricultural land, alleys and even stalls.

The name of the street itself has a curious story: Bernardo Sá Nogueira de Figueiredo was a marshal loyal to the Liberals troops. During the Siege of Porto, in the war between Liberals and Absolutists, the arm that carried the liberal flag was severed by the enemy. It would be known as Sá da Bandeira. Later he took up important political positions, even becoming a minister. He was also distinguished with the titles of Baron, Viscount and Marquis.

Rua Sá da Bandeira only appeared in the 19th century: until then, it was still an area with small  farms and farmland, many of them belonging to D. Antónia Adelaide Ferreira (A Ferreirinha), one of the most important names in the history of Port Wine. The area also had small alleys, which were almost completely demolished.

The street began to be constructed in 1836, but the first houses would only appear seven years later. In 1875 it was extended to Rua Formosa and the continuation until Rua de Fernandes Tomás (1904) which forced the demolition of the stables where the horses, which pulled the public transport, were at the time. Later, the street would be extended to the South and later to the North, until it gained its present form.

 

Points of interest

 

Sá da Bandeira Theater

It opened in 1870, but earlier there had been more rudimentary structures for spectacles. It was here that in 1895, Sarah Bernhardt performed, and it was also here that the first films which were made in Portugal were shown. It is said to have been the first theater in Porto to use electric lighting.

 

 

 

Bolhão Market

O mercado mais tradicional da cidade foi construído em cima de uma bolha de água (daí o seu nome). Datado de 1850, é um belo exemplo da arquitetura neoclássica, mas é o seu interior, onde a alma Porto está mais presente. Os produtos frescos, a simpatia dos vendedores e a frescura dos produtos tradicionais portugueses merecem uma visita.

 

 

Palácio do Comércio

A residential building, with commerce and offices, which surprises by its magnificence. It is worth beholding the sculptures of horses that are at the top, as well as all its architecture. It was built in the 1940s by the couple of architects David Moreira da Silva and Maria José Marques da Silva, daughter of José Marques da Silva, one of the most important architects of the city.

 

 

 

A Brasileira Café

It is currently under construction to become a hotel, but this is a building with history. In 1903, Adriano Teles, who had been an emigrant in Brazil, opened this cafe to make known his own brand of coffee. During the decades of 50 and 60 was habitual place of get-togethers and gatherings.