Portugal
Nine days in Portugal: from Porto to the salt pans
The bus from Lisbon drops me off in Porto while the afternoon is still in full swing. I walk straight towards the river, where the Douro winds slowly through the city. Above me, the tiles on old houses glisten in the sunlight: blue, white, yellow, and everywhere it smells of fried fish and something heavy that I later recognise as port. This is Portugal.
3 September 2026 · Wayloha editorial · 8 sources
Porto and the port wine cellars
The Ribeira district is full of tourists, but if you arrive early in the morning, you will find the alleys almost entirely to yourself. I stop for a cup of coffee at a small shop window. The woman behind the counter smiles but says nothing. It is enough.
The port wine cellars are located on the other side of the river. You walk across the Ponte Dom Luís, an iron bridge designed by Gustave Eiffel, and then you see them: the white buildings with 'Caves' written in large letters on the glass. This is where the wine has been fermented and aged for centuries. A tour costs a few euros and you taste at least three different varieties. The guide, a Portuguese woman who grew up here herself, tells how her family has always worked in these cellars.
In Portugal, every tiled wall, every vineyard and every salt patch has a story to tell if you stand still long enough.Portugal
Three days through the Douro Valley
From Porto, a train runs along the river upwards, travelling slowly enough to see everything clearly. The vineyards sit against the slopes, not side by side but one above the other, like stairs climbing into the heavens. This is the Douro Valley, on the UNESCO World Heritage list since 2001.
I rent a car and follow small roads that you can only find on a map. In Peso da Régua, I stop at a vineyard where they are just harvesting. The owner gives me a glass of last year's vintage. We sit under a tree and do not say much, but you feel that this moment is exactly what you were looking for. The terraced vineyards here produce the grapes for port, but also strong red wines that you cannot taste anywhere else.
Peneda-Gerês: Portugal's national park
Northern Portuguese mountains, a two-hour drive further. Peneda-Gerês was officially designated as a national park in 1971, so far the only one in the entire country. The entrance does not feel official, just a signpost and then suddenly green, green everywhere.
I follow one of the marked paths for two hours and encounter no one. The air is cool and damp. Then suddenly a small village appears: no more than five houses, two of which are abandoned. An old man sits on a chair looking at the mountains. When I ask if this village has a name, he points: 'Aqui.' Here. Formal hiking is over now; I just walk, climb up, go down, and follow the path.
Salt and Roman history in the south
Four hours southwards, towards the Algarve. Not to the beaches with parasols, but to the eastern interior, where large silvery fields stretch out. These are salt pans, and they still work here in the same way as two thousand years ago, when the Romans shipped this salt to Rome.
At Sal Marim, I see how water from the sea is led into the fields via canals. The sun evaporates it, and the harvest is done with bare hands. A worker shows me how to separate good crystals from bad ones: he can feel it with his fingers. The salt here is white and coarse, used in many European kitchens. September is harvest month; the ground is dry and white as snow.
Back to the sea
I end my journey in a small fishing village along the coast. For the last time, I eat what grows and lives here: grilled octopus, olives from inland, bread. A man at the table next to me speaks Dutch. He moved here ten years ago and never left.
Nine days have passed. Portugal is not small, but it feels intimate, as if everything is connected by the same hands, the same recipes, the same stones. When you walk from Porto to the mountains and then back to the sea, you get to know the country in a way that maps cannot show.
