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Driving or not driving, trains, apps, tolls, parking in Porto -the practical logistics of moving through Northern Portugal, for visitors who want to spend their time at the table, not figuring out the road system.

Portugal has a dining culture worth understanding before you arrive. Not because it is complicated - it is not - but because a few small things will either confuse you or, once you know them, make every meal feel more comfortable. This is what I wish someone had told me the first time I sat down at a table here. The couvert: what arrives before you order In almost every Portuguese restaurant, bread will arrive at your table before you have ordered anything. Usually alongside

Porto is not short of places to drink wine. What it is short of is places where the person pouring it has something to say — where the list was assembled by someone with a point of view, not a purchasing department. The five bars below are where I go when I want both. None of them are hidden. All of them are worth an evening. Arco Das Verdades The owner does not hand you a menu and disappear. He comes to the table, finds out what you have already drunk and what you are hoping

The standard answer is September - warm, the harvest is beginning in the Douro, the summer crowds are thinning. It is not wrong. But Porto is genuinely interesting in every season, for different reasons, and the honest answer depends entirely on what you are here for. Here is what each part of the year actually offers. Spring: April and May Porto emerges from its Atlantic winter gradually. By April the light has changed - sharper, longer - and the terraces reopen with a cert