It’s 2022 and I’m finally back in the city where I began a life-changing adventure almost 35 years ago. Porto. 1988. I began that trip visiting my Madeira friend Paulo who was at university in Porto. I remember coming home from work every night for almost a year, spending hours mapping out a 6-month itinerary with my shiny new Let’s Go Europe on my lap. I still have that big, orange, tattered thing on a bookshelf at home. It has a bunch of buddies now, Let’s Go Britain & Ireland (including Scotland and Wales) 1986 is still there too, hanging out with all the cooler Lonely Planets and Rough Guides that have guided me over the years, the decades.
It’s a shame, I’m actually a little sad I don’t use those printed guides anymore. I bought and kept so so many, even if I didn’t end up actually going in the end—Sri Lanka and Madagascar still sit proudly on my shelf!—it was the first thing I did when I started dreaming about a new place. I even used to follow publication dates to make sure I didn’t buy an old one if a new one was coming out.
A print of a color photo I took with a crappy ass camera, Instamatic maybe? I used this negative for a photography assignment to practice b/w printing from color negatives.
I remember switching from Lonely Planet to Rough Guide because I thought the LP travel writers were a little too biased and I was looking for less subjective commentary, a more journalistic approach. I can’t remember the last time I actually brought one of those big chunky books with me on a trip. Guatemala 2005 maybe? Hmmm, maybe Sicily 2012. It was so great reading the descriptions of all the accommodation options for every budget. Now I just read Airbnb reviews to make sure that the wifi is strong enough for me to make Slack calls. And the maps that were at the beginning of each section or town! I used to lay the book on the ground and line up the street I was on with the map to try and figure out which way to go. Now I just follow the blue dots on my phone from train stations to the next Airbnb. And I still get lost.
Me trying to recreate my man with the hat pic, similar street, filminess, mirrorless camera technology.
Anyway, returning to this city, to this country, after so many years, after so many subsequent trips to this part of the world is more than just nostalgia. I was 20 in March 1988, with three trips to Europe already under my belt, two of them on my own. My grandmother died a few months before I left and I had already been working 9 to 5 jobs full time for 5 years. It was time for an adventure.
Ahhhhhh beautiful, magical Porto. I definitely have some hazy memories of this place. Like preferring it to Lisbon. And gazing at the same tiled Ribeira houses across the Douro from the same row of benches in Gaia after my very first intoxicating sips of port with Paulo. We kept in touch after my visit to his island home two years prior, and since he was studying in Porto now, I thought it would be a good way to start my solo odyssey—visiting a friend.
It was warm on that day in March, and it’s warm here now in May. I have a very strong memory of following that man with the hat through Porto’s narrow streets, quickening my pace, desperate to get that shot. Although I’m not sure if that was during a later trip, when I visited Paulo for a weekend in the early 90s. I do vaguely remember wandering around, taking pictures, killing time while Paulo went to class, being careful not to get lost. And I clearly remember the hypnotic heady buzz of winter sunshine and fortified wine in a foreign city. I’m doing the same thing today, wandering around, taking pictures, killing time before starting work in a few hours, being careful not to get lost.
It’s strange coming back after so many years and lives between visits. I’m all grown up now, but I’m still chasing that very same freedom of just sitting on a bench on the banks of a northern river in a foreign city, warmed by the afternoon sun, a fuzzy mind and a belly full of free port. I hope I find that here again.
