Rua do Vilar Porto and a Still Portuguese Soul
2026-07-18
This watercolor is from PoSK‘s meetup 153, on Rua do Vilar, right near the Palácio de Cristal. PoSK meetups are such a good way to discover new spots, unexpected little streets tucked right next to some famous landmark, the kind you end up walking past once in a while without ever noticing the beauty hiding there in plain sight.
Once I got to the street, I strolled around more slowly to take in the details of the houses, the doors and windows that these smaller side streets tend to have. They feel more welcoming, and some of them still carry that air of a city untouched by the greedy rush of real estate development sweeping through Portugal. Streets like this, with a slope that’s annoying to walk up and down every day, don’t have some spectacular view of a landmark, and they’re not close enough to one either, to get remodeled to the point of losing much of their essence. But this is one of those streets that still holds onto that real Portuguese soul.
With that more traditional feel to the street, and its more traditional houses, I have a particular soft spot for older houses like these, the ones that really carry a history printed into their walls, windows that have already seen so much go by on that street. So, being a fan of open windows, with their curtains fluttering along with the wind, that ended up being my pick for the afternoon I spent there on that street.