Livraria Lello charges eight euros to climb a red mahogany staircase under a stained-glass ceiling. Standing at the top, I paid it without complaint. I would pay it again. The eight euros is not for the books. The eight euros is for standing inside the argument that a bookshop can be as grand as a cathedral. In 1906, that was radical. In 2024, it is simply correct.
LIVRARIA LELLO
Livraria Lello opened on Rua das Carmelitas in 1906 and has spent the subsequent century being one of the most beautiful rooms in Portugal. The building's neo-Gothic facade is ornate even by Porto's standards — carved stone figures, an Art Nouveau frieze, stained-glass windows — and inside, the red curved staircase is its centrepiece: a split curve climbing through carved mahogany railings toward a stained-glass ceiling that filters the light into amber and gold. They now charge eight euros to enter, which feels like robbery until you are standing on the staircase, and then it feels like a bargain.
The connection to Harry Potter is disputed. J.K. Rowling lived in Porto in the early 1990s and taught English here while writing the early chapters of the first book. Whether Lello's staircase directly inspired Hogwarts' moving staircases or Flourish and Blotts is something Rowling has been deliberately vague about, and the bookshop has wisely chosen not to need the answer. The building earns its own reputation without the fictional endorsement. What is not disputed is the technique required to photograph it cleanly: work the upper mezzanine, looking down to get the full staircase geometry without the crowd cutting across the frame. Arrive early. Climb to the top. Wait twenty minutes for a clean composition. ISO 4000, 24mm, f/2.8. The natural light from the stained-glass ceiling is just enough.
Livraria Lello was built in 1906 by the architect Xavier Esteves for the brothers José and António Lello. The red curved staircase was the architectural centrepiece — designed to demonstrate that a bookshop could be as grand as a cathedral. In 1906, that was a radical argument. In 2024, it is simply fact.
LIVRARIA LELLO HERITAGE ARCHIVE; PORTO CITY HALL ARCHITECTURAL RECORDS, 1906
PORTO’S AZULEJOS & THE CITY AS A CANVAS
The rest of Porto is an open-air museum that does not know it is a museum. Azulejo tile panels appear on church façades, station walls, the sides of buildings that sell groceries. Some are centuries old — 17th-century blue-and-white panels depicting biblical scenes on the exterior walls of the Igreja de Santo Ildefonso. Some are new commissions — contemporary geometric patterns on the walls of metro stations designed by artists who treat the tiles as seriously as any gallery medium. All of them are public art, placed where anyone walking by can find them, and none of them require an admission fee or a timed entry slot.
The Ponte Luis I upper deck connects Porto to Gaia 60 metres above the Douro and is, on a clear December morning, one of the great free walks in Europe. The iron grid underfoot gives you the river below and the city on both sides simultaneously — the Ribeira climbing the north bank, the wine lodge rooftops of Gaia on the south. I walked it with a 24mm lens and no plan and came away with more keepers than most dedicated shooting sessions produce. The city gives you everything if you slow down enough to receive it
Walking the upper deck of Ponte Luis I on Christmas Eve — the iron grid underfoot, Porto and Gaia spread on both sides in midday December light. 24mm, f/4.0, ISO 400. The 60-metre height makes the river look like a model of itself.
A narrow calcada street in the Ribeira on Christmas Eve afternoon — ironwork balconies above, pedestrians disappearing into the winter light. 35mm, f/2.8, ISO 640. Porto's back streets are the real content. The famous views are the bonus.
A blue-and-white azulejo tile panel of the Virgin Mary set into a white Porto wall, flanked by iron lanterns — sacred art as street furniture, a quiet side street near the Ribeira. 24mm. These panels appear without announcement throughout the city, on walls that also advertise restaurants and electrical repair. Porto does not separate the sacred and the practical. It puts them next to each other and lets them coexist.
Azulejo tiles take their name from the Arabic word 'azul' — blue — which is itself from the Persian 'lāzhward,' the word for lapis lazuli. Portugal adopted the tradition from Moorish Spain in the 15th century, developed it into a national art form, and has been tiling its walls, churches, and train stations ever since. The oldest azulejo panels in Porto are from the 1600s. The newest ones were installed last year. Both are on public streets. Both are free.
NATIONAL MUSEUM OF AZULEJO, LISBON; MUSEU NACIONAL DO AZULEJO CATALOGUE, 2023
THE TABLE
Porto's Christmas market runs along the Aliados boulevard — by European Christmas market standards, admirably restrained. A few dozen stalls, roasted chestnuts sold by the paper cone, bifanas from a cart near Clérigos Tower: the bifana is Portugal's answer to the sandwich, a braised pork cutlet in a crusty roll with mustard and piri-piri, consumed standing on the street in the cold for two euros, and it is the best two euros you will spend in Porto. My wife and I stood under the blue LED spiral tree — four stories tall, a helix of light blinking against the neoclassical Câmara Municipal — with a bifana each and nowhere to be until midnight. That is the correct way to spend Christmas Eve in a city you have just arrived in.
THE GLASS
Christmas Eve evening, at the Graham's lodge with the Porto skyline across the water: a flight of four Ports in ascending age. A White Port served cold with tonic — the Portuguese aperitif that no one outside Portugal seems to know about, dry and slightly saline, one of the best things you can drink in cold December air. Then a 10-year Tawny, then a 20-year Tawny, then a vintage Late Bottled Vintage that had been in wood until the mid-2000s. Each one a different decade, a different season, a different story from the same river valley. The 20-year is where most tastings end, because it is where the wine becomes something you want to sit with and not explain. The lodge pours them at a table overlooking the Douro and the Ribeira across the water, and the combination of the 20-year Tawny and that view, after dark, in December, is one of the more complete sensory experiences available at any price point in Europe.
— Abe Capetillo | Road & Glass | Porto, Portugal | December 2024
Next: the dancer sessions begin — Christmas Eve after dark on the Ribeira quay.
Practical notes: Livraria Lello requires a timed-entry ticket (€8, redeemable against any book purchase) — book online or expect a queue. The upper deck view of the staircase is only available if you climb all the way; resist stopping at the mezzanine. Graham's lodge tasting is by appointment in high season, walk-in available December–February. The Aliados Christmas market runs December 1–January 5.