After an amazing cycling trip through the Pyrénées, we had a couple of weeks to recover then it was straight out west to Porto, Portugal for NOS Primavera Sound festival. We had initially toyed with the idea of attending the Barcelona event, but settled on Porto for two reasons: one, we had never been to Porto; and two, the festival was slightly more intimate with fewer stages and bands.

Porto is beautiful; full of beautiful tiled buildings, great food and a really weird public transport ticketing system…

We stayed in an AirBnB just to the north of the old town – about a 15 minute walk into town (20 when it was hot!) and spent the non-festival days wandering about town eating sopa verde and pastels de nata wherever we could. Every pastelaria is a delight, and the people are extremely friendly.

At the festival itself, we had a ball with Giant Sand, Babes in Toyland and the Twerps. Spiritualized was pretty good as was Viet COng  and Interpol. I thought Sun Kil Moon was going to be great, but they weren’t really my cup of tea in the end. On the other hand, Xylouris White was incredible, Dan Deacon was super fun and Einstürzende Neubauten was amazing. Go watch one of these videos right now if you’re not familiar with them (The Garden, Sabrina).

As always, you can find the full photoset from our Porto trip on flickr.