I live in Porto, which is a city on the coast in the north of Portugal. It has a population of 300,000 people and it’s the second biggest city in Portugal.
It’s a beautiful city, and it’s great for walking around. There are lots of narrow streets, and it’s full of churches, museums, and markets. There’s an area called Foz where there are a lot of outdoor bars and restaurants – people go there at the weekend to sit in the sun, drink coffee, and watch the Atlantic.
The weather is very different from the south of Portugal. The winter can be very wet, and it sometimes rains for days. The summer is wonderful – it’s sunny but not usually too hot, and it0s great for going to the mountains or the beach.
Porto is famous for port wine, which is only produced here (but I don’t like it much!). The biggest tourist attraction in Porto is probably the river – there are some beautiful bridges, including one designed by Eiffel, and lots of tourists go on boat trips. There’s a festival in June called São Joao, with a lot of fireworks and people in the streets, and everybody spends most of the evening hitting each other with plastic hammers!
But I think the best things about Porto are the people and the atmosphere. It’s quite small and it’s very safe and friendly. It’s a working city and it has a real sense of history, and that’s the main reason why I like living here so much.