Portugal 2025 | Porto

It’s become the norm now that it takes me a good 9-12 months to share images after a trip. A mix of life being so full and also not really wanting to spend time processing personal images after I’ve done that for my job all day.

But I’m back now to recap travels with Welcome Wanderers to Portugal last spring. My phone was stolen on the 3rd day of the trip and I definitely felt a bit lost without it even though I still had my big camera for documenting. When I’m traveling, I use a hybrid style of documenting and my phone typically captures restaurants, food, people and random details while my big camera captures architecture and site seeing. I snagged a few photos from friend's phones but most of my documentation of this trip is architecture.

Brian and I spent a week in Lisbon a few summers ago but we didn’t explore much of Portugal beyond Lisbon & Sintra so the majority of this trip covered new territory for me. We began in Porto which is a beautiful hill town straddling the Douro river.

We enjoyed a walking tour of the heart of the city, a tour of a Port Winery, a ride in the skyway tram and lots of walking up and down the hills! On our one free day, I took the opportunity to conduct an editorial shoot with a sweet couple who stood in as the bride and groom. They were so lovely to work with and we got to wrap the shoot at the beautiful Sao Bento Train Station! 

The blue tiles are plentiful in Porto-- perhaps even more so than Lisbon. A true highlight was seeing one of the churches with an entirely tile facade. Unfortunately, my snaps of it were on my phone! 

Learning more about Port Wine was fascinating and we discovered Porto Tonics-- essentially Gin & Tonics but with White Port. A new fave!