Have Ryanair, EasyJet and cruise ships ruined Europe?
It doesn't take long before the woman at the hotel reception pulls out a city map of Porto. Look, she says, there's the Old Town and the Douro, there's the harbour and here, by the way, the pride evident in her voice, is the world's most beautiful bookshop: Livraria Lello.
It sounds fantastic and the place looks even more amazing in the photos. It's located in a two-storey, neo-Gothic building with lots of dark wood, an abundance of old books, ornamentation and stained glass, and a curved staircase right in the middle. It was opened in 1906, a cathedral of books, a dream for voracious bookworms from all over the world. It has been said that JK Rowling often visited the Livraria when she lived in Porto at the beginning of the 1990s, a time when she taught English and began dreaming up the Harry Potter series.
Der Spiegel
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