Порто

Porto gave its name to the country and its wine to the world, and considers both transactions fair. The granite city stacks itself above the Douro in tiers of tiled facades — the Ribeira's UNESCO-listed tumble, the azulejo cathedrals of São Bento station's twenty thousand painted tiles, the Clérigos tower as exclamation mark — while across the river in Gaia the port lodges age their barrels in cool halls, the boats that once carried them moored below as advertisement. The bridges stitch the gorge, Maria Pia by Eiffel and Dom Luís I by his disciple, iron rainbows over the wine trade.

The city's bookshop is world-famous (Lello's crimson staircase), its football religion continental, its francesinha sandwich a dare. Musically Porto pairs a Koolhaas-designed flying die — the Casa da Música, one of Europe's boldest halls — with the older ecclesiastical circuit the concert record documents: the Igreja da Trindade, the neoclassical church behind the city hall whose nave hosts concerts, and the orchestra of the Gaia conservatory foundation from the far bank, the record's evidence that Porto's music, like its wine, is a two-bank enterprise. Granite, tiles, tawny and tripe (the citizens are proudly "tripeiros"): Porto is Portugal's north made stone — generous, stubborn, and best at river level, glass in hand.