Porto excels as a lively hub, says Monocle

Monocle's July/August 2019 issue, number 125 writes about lively hubs, i.e., cities where "life needn't be overpriced, overwhelming drudge", and one such city is Porto.

The Invicta is among the best cities in the world to call home, as it offers "the perfect mix of businesses, brands and people building better neighbourhoods", according to Monocle.

Home is where the heart is, be it for natives, as Eduardo Aires (author of the renowned Porto. city brand), or for foreigners that decided that Porto was to become their home, like Miguel Cunha and Sako Arao, who moved from the UK in 2013, or even Juan de Mayoralgo, who moved from Lisbon to Porto, in 2016. There is also industrial designer Christian Haas, who moved from France to the Invicta in 2014.

Porto is the place they chose to spend their lives; in short, the place they chose to live, literally.

As Monocle pinpoints "size doesn't matter", and we add that "it's not the size of the wand that matters, it's how much magic is in it", and no doubt that Porto is a magical city, a place where Aires has his office "in the city centre and I can walk anywhere I need to in 10 or 15 minutes" or even "pay less than 1000 euros per month" to rent his design studio.

Also, the couple Miguel Cunha and Sako Arao were able to fulfil their dream of opening a restaurant. "I always wanted to do something like this in London but it's much easier to start a business here", former primary school teacher Arao states. "We can even afford to use organic suppliers", Arao enthuses.

Juan de Mayoralgo moved from Lisbon to Porto and started his guesthouse business, "which has been more or less fully booked ever since".

Christian Haas and his partner were able to "realise our dreams" in Porto. They moved from France almost five years ago because "in Paris we'd been looking at tiny overpriced apartments but here we found a house on four floors with a big garden for the same price" and they even managed to transform one of the floors into a "giant studio" for Haas.

His belief is that "we are entering the age of smaller cities" as "people need time and place to be creative and that's just not possible in places like London, Paris or new York, which are overcrowded, rushed and expensive".

Read the full article here and check why Monocle says Porto excels at rest and play.