It would be easy to visit Porto just for its bridges or Porto Caves or its blue tiled churches or its cathedral or its many staggering panoramas or its statues or just its train station or its pastries and other food or the stairways or winding alleys in hillside historical districts or its gorgeous sunsets visible from the various hilltops/bridges and more… but the combination of these is breathtakingly amazing.
Quebec City, population about 500,000, is exquisitely and breathtakingly beautiful. She crowns an imposing several hundred foot high promontory on the north bank of the Saint Lawrence River. Think Salzburg, Prague, Koblenz, etc. This fantastic position for a ramparted city and citadel allowed Quebec’s cannons to easily dominate the fast moving, broad and powerful Saint Lawrence River below it. The cannons are still there, modernized throughout the ages until I guess maybe 125 to 150 years ago.
Charleston is an extraordinarily photogenic city on a peninsula flanked by two rivers and the ocean. It has red crepe myrtles, cobblestone streets, pastel facades, palmetto trees, landscaped parks, black wrought iron fences, Charleston houses with three story south-facing porches, elegant churches with soaring elongated single spires, old cemeteries, art deco theaters and offices, families with kids, wonderful people of all ethnicities and ages, brick buildings with beautiful American flags, address tiles of varying colors and materials, historic plaques, cannons and much, much more.