Portugal is one of the more neglected Western European countries, but during my short 3 days there, I discovered its affordability and beautiful scenery along the Atlantic Ocean. While it was cold and snowing in France, the weather was the exact opposite in Portugal – warm and sunny. I regretted choosing 2 cities to visit because I could not dedicate enough time to explore each city, but due to flight timings and prices I had to do it this way. I landed in Porto, the second largest city in Portugal. The people of Porto are fiercely proud of their city, they see themselves as belonging more to Porto than Portugal. It is an important port city which is also famous for port wine. Port wine is a specialty of this region, it tastes fruity and sweet. The wines are made some 140km away, and stored in cellars along the river Duoro in the city of Gaia, so it has nothing to do with Porto actually despite its name. I also had a wine tasting session and a guided tour of the cellar. The cellar was really huge and had many barrels of wine, imagine the litres of wine produced every year. I sampled the croft pink, ruby and red wine. The wines were really fruity and sweet, it would go well with cheese or chocolates as mentioned by the guide. The cellars are found along the river because the temperatures are cooler and remains quite constant throughout the year. One thing about Porto that stands out is the use of tiles on the exterior of buildings. People mock Portugal for using bathroom tiles on the exterior of their houses, but it is an interesting decoration with two advantages, 1) the tiles reflect heat on hot days and 2) they are easy to clean. Even the exterior of churches have been decorated with tiles and blue ink designs.