So, port wine was created here and there are TONS of port wineries (or wine barrel houses) all grouped together that give wine tastings. Port wine is a very sweet, very strong type of wine. If you look at one bank of the river Douro, you can see at least 20 of those wine barrel houses.
As for the gold, when Portugal was trying to expand their empire, their colony in the Americas was Brazil. Well, they found gold in Brazil and then brought it back to Portugal for use in the churches. Any of the churches in the city that were built after the 16th century has tons of Gold inside. The one with the most gold is the church of Sao Francisco, and it has over 600kg (1300lbs) of gold inside. But really, if you see any church, you will probably see gold. It left me feeling like I had found El Dorado.
When I first arrived at the train station, Porto - Sao Bento, I noticed that there was a really cool tile mural on the wall. I found out later that this is in the top 5 most beautiful train stations in the world. There is also tile all around the whole city, some on church facades, some just on house facades.
There are 6 bridges in Porto that cross the river Douro. At the time each one of them was built, they were all world record holders for something (or at least 5 of the 6 were). Two of the bridges are steel and have an intricate steel pattern that looked very familiar. The first was designed by the architecture firm of Gustave Eiffel. Eiffel himself did not design it but it was a partner in his firm, Teophile Seyrig. When the second was being designed, Seyrig no longer worked for Eiffel and they competed with each other for the design of the second bridge. the officials of Porto decided to go with Seyrig again. At the time, that was the largest steel structure in the world. This didn't sit well with Eiffel, and less than 2 years later the Eiffel Tower was built.
If you have never read or seen a Harry Potter book or movie, this paragraph might not make sense to you. JK Rowling lived in Porto for 3 years. She was living there when she started writing the first Harry Potter book. The university students there wear black suits as uniforms and they all wear capes. This was some of the inspiration for the Hogwart's school uniforms. She went to this cafe called the Majestic Cafe (One of the top 5 most beautiful cafes in the world) and worked on the manuscript there. There is a book store there that is one of the top 5 most beautiful book stores in the world. In the book store, there is a crazy staircase that is the inspiration for the main staircase in Hogwart's and the thinnest house in the world is also in Porto, possible inspiration for Sirius Black's house.
Dom Luis Bridge, this is the second of the two bridges that I mentioned.
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