Easter Sunday dawned with a slight haze over the city of Porto. While we had plans to see more of Porto including a trip on the Douro River, first we would attend an Easter service. We had decided that instead of going to one of the many older churches down in the historic district of Porto, we would instead attend the service at the local church. It was a few blocks away from our hotel.
We arrived a few minutes before the service began at Igreja Senhora da Conceição. As the organ played, the leaders entered the sanctuary in a processional. A man holding a large crucifix led the procession. Another young man was swinging a censor with incense, and smoke was coming out of the censor. I won’t go into all the details of the service, but I will point out some of the things that struck me as an American Evangelical attending a Portuguese Catholic Easter service.
At the beginning of the service the priest said a few words of greeting, and then he came back down into the congregation. He had a straw whisk which he would dip into a tray of water held by an attendant. He would then use the whisk to toss water over the congregation. I presume it was holy water. He went down one side and then back up the other side of the aisle. It was quite surprising to me.
The participants used a Gregorian chant style through most of the service, especially when the priest would pray the ritual prayers. Music was very dominant throughout the service. A female choir director would lead a choir in song and then encourage the congregation to sing a repeating chorus with them. Through it all the organist was absolutely amazing. His playing seemed to flow throughout the service tying everything together. They also had a man playing a trumpet which enhanced the music.
They used the incense censor at various times in the service. For example, when they did the gospel reading of the resurrection story, they brought out a large Bible. They seemed to venerate the Bible, and the censor was used to put smoke in the place where the Bible was placed for reading seemingly to purify the location.
One final note, after the people took the Eucharist, the priest took the chalice and placed it in a special niche above the altar area and closed it away in front of everyone. That I found interesting.
After the Easter service was over, I stayed around a few minutes just to hear the organist play. I actually took pipe organ lessons in college, although I was never particularly good at it. Because of that I have an appreciation for how difficult playing the organ can be. The organist was really quite proficient and skilled.
This particular church was not as ornately decorated as those in the historic district. It was much brighter and more modern. I did not bring my camera to the service, but Silvette took a few photos of the sanctuary as people left the service.
After the service we walked back to our hotel to get ready for the rest of the day. Then we took off for the riverfront. Our main plan for this Easter Sunday was to go on a boat ride on the Doura River. There are six main bridges that connect the two sides of the river in Porto. Thus the boat tour is called the six bridges tour.
We arrived at the riverfront, bought our tickets, and then had about a 40 minute wait before the tour took place. Finding a place under a tree, we just chilled for a while. We had been doing so much walking the last few days so it was good to just sit and people watch. We did get in line for the tour when we saw it was beginning to get longer. That was good as I got a great seat for the tour. There was an upper deck and a lower one which was enclosed. I wanted on top so I could take photos without being limited.
The tour on the Douro River was not all that exciting. There was a recording that gave the information in four languages: Portuguese, English, French and Spanish. Most of the information was about the bridges which was not all that thrilling unless you were an engineer. I did find it interesting that one of the bridges was designed by the same man who made the plans for the Eiffel Tower. In fact that bridge even had some of the same metal designs that is on the Eiffel Tower.
Some of the other bridges crossing the Douro River were known at some point as having the largest concrete arch or other details. The tour went up river for the first five bridges and then down river past central Porto to close to the mouth of the river. It was quite windy near the mouth so I was glad when we turned around. Even though the bridges were not all that exciting, it was an enjoyable trip on the waters of the Douro River and a unique view of the area. We saw places we would not have seen otherwise.
Back on land we really didn’t have any specific plans for the rest of the afternoon. We had tickets to the church tower at 7:00 so we decided to cross the Douro River on the footbridge to the town on the other side, Vila Nova de Gaia. We were told this was the location of the port wine sales. While we weren’t that interested in port, it was at least something to do.
We walked along the waterfront after crossing the bridge. There were again small street shops selling souvenirs and things from the area. What we found interesting was that a ways down the riverfront there were a number of people of African descent displaying goods on blankets. They all seemed to be in the same area. We didn’t know if they were assigned that way or chose to support each other together, but it just seemed a little odd. In general we had seen few people of African descent in the area.
We found a food court and after checking out all the options ended up getting risotto at one of the eateries. I’m not sure I have ever bought risotto before. It was OK. The flavor in mine was pretty strong. We also had a bowl of fresh fruit. Eating out often leads to fruits and vegetables being excluded from our diet. A bowl of fruit was just what we needed.
After leaving Vila Nova de Gaia and crossing back to Porto, we still had time to kill before our 7:00 tickets at the church. We wandered back up to a Starbucks so Silvette could buy a Porto mug. We hung out there until it was time to climb the hill to the church. When we arrived we took some photos from the front of the church.
Yesterday the ticket agent told us that visiting the church was free. Our tickets were only needed for climbing up the tower. We figured we would get there about 15-20 minutes before our climb time to check out the interior of the church. When we arrived at the church, the attendent told us a wedding was taking place in the sanctuary. We could not go in. She then invited us to a service at 9:30 which would allow us to see the church at that point. Unfortunately, that was not going to happen. We were not going to wait around for a couple of hours, and our hotel was not close. So after four days I never did see the interior of the Igreja e Torre dos Clérigos.
We did climb the tower (torre). According to Silvette there were 210 steps to the very top. We got up quite high, and there was a platform we could walk around. We thought that was it, but then we saw another staircase that took us to the very top. There we could not move in the narrow space until other people moved around. They had comparisons of height of various buildings around the world on the edge of the wall, comparing them to the height of the church. They even had Seattle’s Space Needle on the list. We could see quite a distance from there which meant more red roofs. We could even see out to the ocean which we had not attempted to visit. From up high it was fun to see many of the places we had visited during our visit.
After climbing down the steep and narrow staircase to the bottom, it was finally time to take our final light rail trip back to our hotel. We had enjoyed Porto despite our initial impressions. The weather had also been warm and sunny, a great retreat from the cool spring of Seattle. The next day we would take a train and travel to the very south of Portugal. Join me next week as we discover Faro, Portugal.
Credit: Silvette Lee took the photos of the tour boat and the food.