Porto is not a place you pass through quietly. It spills down the north bank of the Douro in a jumble of tiled facades, steep alleys and church towers, with the river at the bottom and the double-decker Dom Luís I bridge arching overhead. That iron bridge, finished in the 1880s, was designed by a pupil of Gustave Eiffel, and it carries a metro line on the upper deck and traffic on the lower. Across the river are the port wine lodges of Vila Nova de Gaia, where the sweet fortified wine is aged in cellars and barrels.
The city has a history of trade and stubbornness. Its people are nicknamed tripeiros, tripe eaters, after a story that they gave the best meat to the Portuguese ships sailing for Ceuta in the fifteenth century and kept the offal for themselves. The local sandwich, the francesinha, a towering mix of bread, meat, cheese and a hot beer sauce, is a rather more modern invention and a good test of appetite. The railway station at São Bento has a hall covered in blue and white tiles that tell the history of Portugal, and it is worth five minutes even if you are not catching a train.
On a motorcycle, Porto is a place for patience. The streets are steep, cobbled in places, and crossed by tram tracks which are slippery in the wet, and the traffic is typically Latin: fast, inventive and not especially concerned about indicators. Park the bike and walk the Ribeira along the waterfront instead. The real riding begins once you leave the city. The road along the Douro, the N108, follows the river upstream toward the wine country, with views across to the terraces on the far bank. Get an early start, as the morning mist often sits over the river and the roads dry out slowly.
With a quarter of a million people in the city and many more in the suburbs, every service is available: fuel, repair shops, and food of every kind. The best advice for a short stop is to find a cafe near the river, order a strong coffee and a custard tart, and look at the bridge. Weather is Atlantic, so a jacket with a rain liner is wise in any season.