As I have lived for some time in both Porto and Prague, I wanted to share with you my observations regarding things in common, but also complete opposites between these two cities. Btw for those interested in visiting Prague, there is a direct flight from Porto operated by EasyJet for affordable price, so you can check if below is true by yourself. Feel free to comment if you agree and share with me your experience.
Similarities
- beer – Although Porto is firstly famous for its Port wine, there is also a strong beer culture with many small breweries and craft beers. Prague is famous for a good beer and moreover, it is said that beer is cheaper than water in Prague.
- cool cafés – Both Porto and Prague are full of various cool hipster, but also classic-style cafés I love! Whether you walk down the Porto’s downtown, or Prague’s Letná, you will definitely spot many nice café places.
- Wenceslas vs Aliados Square – If you ever visited both Porto and Prague, you for sure realized how similar the main squares are! Both have similar statues of horses and both have a huge monument in the start of square (National Museum in Prague and City Hall in Porto).
- river with bridges – The dominant geographical object of both Porto and Prague is their river with bridges. In Porto it is the Douro River with 6 bridges, one of them being the famous Luís I Bridge, while in Prague it is the Vltava River with 30 bridges amongst which there is a famous Charles Bridge.
- old town – Apart from similar main square and river with bridges, the architecture of an old town of both cities is quite similar. In Prague you can see mainly Gothic, Baroque and Renaissance style, in Porto you see mainly Baroque. Prague is called also as “stověžatá” meaning “the city of hundred spires”. There are many spires and towers in Porto, though.
Differences
- metro – Although Porto city proudly refers to its “metro”, there is actually no real underground metro in Porto. What is called “metro” in Porto is actually rather a kind of S-train and so it is its speed 🙂 On the other hand, Prague metro is a real underground subway with all its advantages.
- religion – On paper, there are app. 80 % of Catholics in Portugal, while the Czech Republic’s (and also its capital Prague’s) top religion (almost 40 %) is atheism. Meaning there is no religion. Therefore you barely see people in Prague going to church, or having a marriage in the church, etc. Although I must say that despite strong Catholic religion in Portugal, the country is a lot open-minded and tolerant towards various issues such as drug possession, euthanasia, same-sex partnerships, etc.
- language – As Portuguese comes from completely different language family (Romance / Latin) than Czech (Slavic), there are hardly any words in common. Despite the language differences, both Portuguese and Czech people speak solid English. Btw in this article I have gathered some words that are surprisingly same, or similar in Portuguese and Slovak/Czech, but different in English.
- currency – While Czechia kept its original currency Czech koruna, Portugal adopted euro already in 1999.
- climate – As Porto is situated by the ocean, its climate is Mediterranean with oceanic influence characterized by mild temperatures with rainy winters. On the other hand, Prague is located in inland and has a continental climate with warm and dry summers and cold, often snowy winters. However, my coldest winter was the one in Porto, as there is usually no central heating in buildings, while in Prague it is very warm inside during the winter.
- sauna culture – Probably stemming from different religious bases, sauna culture was something I realized differs in both Porto and Prague. While in Prague I was instructed to enter sauna without flip-flops and any swimwear, only with a towel and sheet, in Porto this would be considered almost a crime, where you, on the other hand, need flip-flops and swimwear.
