When you visit Porto, a city with a wonderful old town declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site, one of the essential things to see is the wall that surrounds the old city of Portus Cale.
The walls of Porto are a monument that is among the best things to visit in Porto or even in Portugal. The city had two perimeters, the first of which belonged to Roman times and surrounded a small part of the city of about 4 hectares, the old Roman Porto, little more than a port and a fort. As we explain in our Old Town and Gaia tour, these walls were the beginning of everything, and later they would be crowned by a fortified cathedral, the Cathedral of Porto.
However, the advance of the centuries and the prosperity of the city meant that the walls became too small, therefore it was decided to make an expansion in the 14th century, by the hand of Ferdinand I – the Inconstant -, who carried out his father’s expanding plans. Why did history give him that nickname? Join the Old Town and Gaia tour and find out. But the point is that the new walls were erected and remained standing until the Peninsular War against Napoleon, when, between the time they started to make way for urban expansion, and the war, the city lost them. But all of them? No! The beauty of Porto is that a large part of its walls have remained intact, some parts attached to buildings, others are visible in narrow alleys, but there are two huge sections that can still be admired. The first of them is located on the banks of the Douro River, on the well-known Ribeira neighbourhood. You can walk over it or have a Port wine on the terraces that surround it. And the other is next to the Luís I Bridge, high and majestic, it surrounds the entire rock cliff between the cathedral and the river, a must-see.
Do not hesitate and find us with our green umbrella, you will learn a lot and regret nothing on our free tour!
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