We decided to end the day with the highly recommended Porto – Six Bridges Port Tasting Luxury Sunset Sail on the Douro River.
It was an hour-long walk to the Marina do Freixo, where the cruise began, through the Freixo, a part of Porto rarely visited by the average touron, mostly graffiti-covered apartment houses, elegant old buildings gone to seed, some with small trees growing from their roofs like unruly hair, and neighborhood cafes filled with happily singing locals.
Along the way, I had a flashback to my days living in the American Southwest. The stately cottonwood grows abundantly along the floodplains of the Douro River, as it does in Canyon Country, and they were blasting their fluffy white seeds into the air, where they piled up on the ground like snow. In some places it was up to our ankles.
There were eight customers onboard our tour boat, a plush 30-foot outboard owned by our gracious skipper, Antonio, plus his friendly crew, Marcelo and Maria. The weather was ideal. I woud have preferred to sail, but given the narrowness of the river and the boat traffic, that was never going to be an option, even if we were on a boat with sails.
We cruised down the Douro River under the six towering bridges, following our earlier bike ride, and accompanied by at least another hundred tour boats of all shapes and sizes. It was the Touron Armada, heading to the ocean like post-spawning salmon as the sun set and the town of Porto turned a rosy pink.
As we all exchanged stories of our respective lives, Antonio and his mates told us about life in Portugal. Porto and Gaia glided by like a movie. The old and the new were pieced together like a jigsaw puzzle. It took us about an hour to reach the ocean, where we turned around as the sand spits guarding the river glowed with sunny delight.
On the way back upriver, I asked our skipper, Antonio, the one question that had been nagging at me since arriving in Porto: why were so many buildings abandoned? Antonio nodded thoughtfully before offering us some very interesting answers.
“The high level of dereliction is actually the result of several overlapping historical, legal, and economic factors,” he said as if beginning a lecture.
Douro River waterfront
He waved his arm at a line of crumbling warehouses. “UNESCO guidelines require that the layout and medieval facades of buildings be strictly preserved. These rules often make modern upgrades (like installing elevators or updated electrical systems) so expensive that the cost of renovation can exceed the building’s market value.”
Marcelo cut in excitedly. “And many properties are owned by dozens of heirs spread across the globe. Finding and getting agreement from every grandchild to sell or renovate is a notorious legal hurdle that often leads to buildings being left to rot.”
Maria added another piece to the puzzle. “For decades, Portuguese law froze rents to protect the poor, making it impossible for landlords to earn enough to maintain their properties. This led to a cycle of exquisite decrepitude as owners simply could not afford repairs.”
And there was more. In the 1960s, a “donut city” effect occurred as residents moved to more affordable, modern suburbs with parking and better infrastructure, leaving the historic core to decay.
While abandonment is still visible — with some estimates suggesting 1 in 5 buildings in the center remain derelict — the tide has recently begun to shift toward massive redevelopment.
Façadism: To bypass internal modernization challenges, many developers now practice “façadism,” hollowing out buildings to create modern hotels or luxury apartments while leaving only the original UNESCO-protected facade standing.
Touristification: Much of the recent investment has focused on short-term rentals and tourism rather than on residential housing for locals, raising concerns about “ghost towns” where buildings are occupied only by temporary visitors.
By the time we got off the boat, it was dark, and Porto sparkled like gemstone facets in a glowing nighttime sky. It had been a wondrous day. We started with a casual walkabout, then hopped on some electric bikes and rode along the Douro River to the ocean, and ended with a sunset cruise down a river of dreams. Our heads were filled with visions of earthly delights, and we wised up to the fact that we had only scraped Porto’s shimmering surface. As we walked back to our apartment, we realized we had been way over our heads from the very start, and now we had run out of time.
