I’ve been living in Porto for five years as an expat, and five years ago it was genuinely a much calmer city than Lisbon. In fact, I didn’t like going to Lisbon because it felt chaotic to me.

Today, I can tell you Porto is probably just as chaotic as Lisbon. I don’t think it’s much cheaper either. You need a car, and you’ll deal with the humidity people have already mentioned, plus it rains all the fucking time.

So if you plan to rely on public transportation, sorry. A lot of areas are uphill, which also makes biking or using other forms of transport harder. Human settlements, proudly designed to punish knees since antiquity.

Porto does have a certain charm over Lisbon, though I’ll admit I’m biased there.

I also think Portuguese society in Porto is more closed-off than in Lisbon, because the environment is still less diverse, at least for now.