Portus Cale still names the wine and the nation
Porto—Oporto in English—is Portugal's second city after Lisbon, a Douro estuary hub whose historic core UNESCO listed in 1996. Port wine takes its name from the city and Vila Nova de Gaia cellars. Roman Portus Cale traded between Lisbon and Braga after Celtic Gallaeci settlement.
Celtic Gallaeci lived here before Rome, and finds at the Douro's mouth dating to the eighth century BC may point to a Phoenician trading post. Roman Portus Cale linked Lisbon and Braga by trade, and under the Suebi and Visigoths the town spread Christianity. Muslim forces held it from about 714 until Alfonso I of Asturias retook it in 741. In 868 the Galician noble Vimara Peres received the fief and resettled the land between the Minho and Douro, creating the County of Portucale. Henry of Burgundy gained it as dowry on marrying Teresa of Leon in 1093, and their son Afonso I led it to independence in the twelfth century as the core of Portugal.
John I married Philippa of Lancaster here in 1387, sealing the world's oldest surviving military alliance. Henry the Navigator launched the 1415 conquest of Ceuta from the shipyards, and legend says locals ate the leftover tripe while prime meat sailed away, earning them the nickname tripeiros. Douro wine had come downriver on flat-bottomed rabelo boats since the thirteenth century; after the 1703 Methuen Treaty, English firms dominated the port trade by 1717, prompting Pombal to create a state wine company. Nicolau Nasoni built the Clerigos Church and tower between 1732 and 1763.
On 29 March 1809, as Soult's French troops stormed the city, crowds fleeing over the pontoon Ponte das Barcas caused it to collapse, killing about 4,000 people, the deadliest bridge disaster on record. Wellesley soon retook the city, ferrying troops across on wine barges. The 1820 Liberal Revolution started here, the city withstood an eighteen-month absolutist siege in 1832 and 1833, and the first republican revolt came on 31 January 1891. In 1919 monarchists briefly declared a northern monarchy with Porto as capital. New crossings included Eiffel's Maria Pia Bridge of 1877 and Theophile Seyrig's Dom Luis I Bridge of 1886.
Lying about 280 kilometres north of Lisbon, the municipality counts about 273,000 people, having lost nearly 100,000 since the 1980s, and many old buildings risk collapse. It shared the European Capital of Culture title with Rotterdam in 2001.
Source: Porto
