Abandoned Porto: Portugal

We stand on the decaying balcony, our feet perched carefully on two beams of wood, staring out over the historic city of Porto, Portugal. Broken bits of furniture, old mattresses and god knows what else lies on the floor around us.

The view from the casino, by Dave Noakes – (Urbex Appeal).

We are viewing the old city from an abandoned casino that lies just across the impressive Dom Luís I Bridge, above the winding River Douro, a few steps away from the one of the most touristy parts of the city. Graffiti decorates every wall in the once grand building and a group of local teenage couples using the casino as a cool hangout, drink beer, kiss and giggle on the floor underneath us.

The abandoned casino.

As the sun sets and strips the city of colour, turning everything a pale shade of orange, tourists wander across the bridge, many in couples themselves, taking photos of what was once a booming port, famous for trade and colonial power. To the right of us is the famous Maria Pia Bridge built in 1877 by Gustave Eiffel, and way out to the left the Douro estuary winds it’s way slowly to the Atlantic Ocean.

Yes, there’s certainly something romantic about this old city. But there’s also a melancholy about it too. A yearning for times gone by and an uncertainty about its future. All over the city, even on the main high street, shops, banks, houses lay empty. I’ve never seen so many disused buildings in a European city. Wandering through the back streets of Porto, you get the sense that there has been a mass exodus of people from the city.

It’s clear that the economic crash of 2008 hit Portugal hard and the country suffered a major recession in the years following. Many young people left to find jobs in nearby Spain, or even go back to the countryside to become more self-sustainable. Apparently Porto has lost a third of its inhabitants in the past decade and this figure continues to rise. Now, the main industry keeping the city together is tourism and apart from jobs in this sector, there is little opportunity for local youths.

The old city, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is becoming a ghost town. Apparently 1 in 5 buildings in the centre are derelict. Some of the houses here are so ruined that the cost of renovation would be worth more than the price of the house, particularly in light of a recent housing crash. No one wants to buy. No one wants to sell at such a loss.

Plus, a tricky Portuguese law means that renovation of houses is difficult and any change to the outside of your house requires special permission from the town hall – which is very rarely given. Therefore, once beautiful houses lay abandoned and crumbling, their colourful paint flaking and roofs rusting in the salty Porto air. (Rumour has it that the Church of Portugal owns many of the vacant houses.)

We leave the old casino (amidst a few jeers from the teenagers) and stop for a glass of Port below the bridge – the sweet fortified wine which takes the name of the city and whose old warehouses lie behind us in the hills, still producing today. After a few glasses, we call it a night and wander back to out AirBnB.

The next day, we decide to take a walk along the banks of the River Douro all the way to the sea. Again, we notice that away from the colourful strip of restaurants and bars that make up the famous tourist image of Porto, houses and hotels along the riverside lie abandoned. We explore an old hotel that must have been extravagant in its day, now a moss-covered, overgrown maze of old dining rooms, bedrooms and balconies.

Inside the abandoned hotel.

I think to myself that in the not so distant future such spaces could easily become super trendy venues for art galleries, hipster bars and restaurants or the setting for alternative music festivals. I live in Barcelona where every weekend there’s a craft beer or foodie festival in a disused factory or warehouse. Whereas Barcelona seems saturated with tourists and is pushing back on gentrification of its local neighbourhoods, Porto seems spectacularly forsaken.

Taking the wrong route down a hill after exploring the abandoned hotel, and we find ourselves in a seriously poverty-stricken area of the city, that we later discover is known as ‘Bairro Aleixo’. We quicken our pace as we notice cars lined up selling and buying drugs in the light of the day, addicts sat in squatted shacks at the side of the road. Two run down tower blocks, marred with broken windows and covered in graffiti, dominate the skyline and gangs of young men guard the doors of the entrance. We get the feeling that two curious tourists with an interest in abandoned buildings should not have wandered so far off the beaten track, this place feels dangerous. As our AirBnB host tells us later, this area is renowned for being an open-air drug supermarket. It seems that the crash, huge levels of unemployment and austerity measures have brought their fair share of problems to the city.

Hearts beating fast, we find our way unscathed back to the riverside and continue our journey to the beach. As the estuary opens up, crumbling, un-kept mansions line the seafront promenade and we finally make it out the ocean. On a cold winter’s day, the water churns and the waves crash against a picturesque lighthouse.

We finish the day at a seafood restaurant in Matosinhos, Porto’s main beach town. There isn’t much going on here at this time of year, but we find a great little seafood restaurant and sit down for a meal of bacalhau (salted cod), sardinhas (sardines) and other Portuguese specialties. The economic situation certainly makes things cheaper for travellers here, compared with other European cities, and we eat a wonderful seafood meal and a bottle of wine for around 40 Euro.

As our weekend in Porto draws to a close, I wonder about the future of Portugal’s second biggest city. Will people one-day return to this beautiful decaying city and breathe life into it’s derelict buildings? Or will it continue to become a city tinged with sadness, a living history of ancient and modern times intertwined?

About the writer:

This article was written by  Nikki Scott, owner of South East Asia Backpacker Magazine and author of the new travel book ‘Backpacker Business – One girl’s journey from wide-eyed traveller to worldwide entrepreneur.’ Get Nikki’s book now and be inspired to turn your passion for travel into a career!