The Portland of Portugal

Wanderlust By KATE MAXWELL FEB. 10, 2016

In Portugal’s second most populous city, medieval townhouses stack up beside the Douro River like Legos, and churches wear their blue-and-white azulejo tiles outside as well as in. Settled by the Romans, and famous for its port wines, which became a favored export to England via the 1703 Methuen Treaty, Porto was a lucky beneficiary of its country’s vast, centuries-spanning empire — look to the Baroque, blinding-gilt interior of the Church of São Francisco for evidence. Its riverside location made it an important industrial center in the 1700s and 1800s.