Palacio da Bolsa

The Palacio da Bolsa is a block from where I'm staying and adjacent to the São Francisco Church.  It was built in the mid 1800s as a site for commerce and today houses the Porto Chamber of Commerce offices.  The public can tour the non-working spaces, which include a grand room that used to be a stock exchange, ceremonial rooms and the office that Gustave Eiffel worked in when he was in Porto.  The room that is the showstopper is the Arab room, a Moorish revival homage to the Alhambra and decorated to the utmost degree in gold leaf, carvings and paint.

The impressive room includes repeated Arab phrases about the one and only Allah and has an off-center entrance apparently because only Allah is perfect so all tributes must be imperfect.  It's very beautiful and impressive in its detail.

Other areas on the tour -- and you can only visit on a guided tour since they don't want people walking into the workplaces in the building -- have a lot of the original light fixtures and ornate ceilings and woodwork.   And a lot of portraits of past presidents of the Chamber of Commerce.

As we looked at Gustav Eiffel's rather plain office, the guide revealed that the bridge he designed for Porto is so shaky that it was declared unsafe and is unused.  Good to know his student who designed the Dom Luis I bridge did a sturdier job.

As this is my next to last day in Porto, I went up to Vinum, the fancy restaurant at Graham's Port Lodge for lunch.  It's got a beautiful view of Porto and the food was great.