Sandalsand Norge >>
Would you like some Port? In the cellars of Porto (or Oporto) you may taste whichever Port wine you’d like.
The UNESCO World Heritage List includes more than a thousand properties with outstanding universal value. They are all part of the world’s cultural and natural heritage.
Official facts
- Full name of site: Historic Centre of Oporto
- Country: Portugal
- Date of Inscription: 1995
- Category: Cultural site
UNESCO’s World Heritage Centre’s short description of site no. 755:
“The city of Oporto, built along the hillsides overlooking the mouth of the Douro river, is an outstanding urban landscape with a 2,000-year history. Its continuous growth, linked to the sea (the Romans gave it the name Portus, or port), can be seen in the many and varied monuments, from the cathedral with its Romanesque choir, to the neoclassical Stock Exchange and the typically Portuguese Manueline-style Church of Santa Clara.”
My visit
I visited Porto in 2013. This is an excerpt from the introduction to my blog entry:
Porto, or Oporto as it used to be called in English, has the unmistakable atmosphere of an historically important city.
You can’t miss this feeling standing on the Gaia side of the river Douro looking across the river to the Ribeira district rising high and steep up to the baroque buildings forming the skyline. Standing up there, looking down across the river to the huge warehouses of the port wine producers in the Gaia, you get the same feeling. Walking the banks on either side of the river, you will get the same impression. This is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and deservedly so.
Browse to the PREVIOUS or NEXT post in this series.
