Lisbon and Porto sit in the same country, but they hit every one of my senses differently.
Lisbon was wind. It cut through the streets every single day, and I kept a rain jacket shoved in my bag because the sky would turn on you in minutes. The cobblestones were slick and uneven under my feet, and half the time I was underground anyway, the metro rumbling and screeching as it carried us beneath a city I never managed to map in my head. Whenever I came back up, the buildings were wrapped in hand-painted tile murals, each panel its own little scene. They feel so precious that Portugal made it illegal to tear them down, and standing in front of one, I understood why. Sintra was the coldest of it, damp fog sitting on my skin while our guide Isabelle told us the scandalous history of Pena Palace. Dinner was always the warmest part, a plate of shrimp spaghetti and a fado singer filling the room with something slow and aching. I can still taste the octopus from my first night and the sugar of a pillow pastry warm out of the bakery.
Porto let me breathe. It was finally a little warmer, smaller, the kind of place I could walk until my feet ached and still feel like I knew where I was. The cable car swayed as it carried us down toward the water, and the river dropped open beneath me when I walked across the top of the bridge. The whole city seemed to be rebuilding itself, cranes stacked above the rooftops everywhere I turned. From one spot, we counted thirty-three of them. Outside the gold, ornate cathedral, someone was singing Valerie, the song of my whole trip, and I just stood there with a blueberry cheesecake gelato and took it all in. The night I remember most was the Michelin dinner. I am not someone who reaches for new things, but that night I tried all ten courses. The standout was the giant squid, easily the strangest thing I have ever put in my mouth. It was almost too tough to cut with my knife, then weirdly soft and gelatinous the second I bit down. Exotic is the only word for it.
One country gave me two trips, which I am still reliving today.