The crimson stair
The curving fork the planet knows.
Bene Riobó — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Ray Swi-hymn from Sijhih-Taipei, Taiwan — CC BY-SA 2.0 · Gary J. Wood from Toronto, ON, Canada — CC BY-SA 2.0 · Gary J. Wood from Toronto, ON, Canada — CC BY-SA 2.0
Rowling lived in Porto (1991-93) teaching English and drafting the opening chapters — yet later flatly denied ever visiting Lello! Likeliest the stair legend grew touristically upon the true residence — and the whole city (the university students' black capes, say) resembles her world enough to feed the tale without a text.
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Lello is, without much argument, the world's most famous bookshop: the 1906 neo-Gothic hall with its crimson forked, curving staircase — the stairway to heaven planet Instagram knows entire — a stained-glass ceiling lettered Dignity in Work, and carved wooden shelves as a books' cathedral. The Harry Potter fame (Rowling lived in Porto; the stair is said to have inspired her) turned it a queueing phenomenon — so it invented its cure: an entry ticket fully redeemed against any book you buy: pay, climb, shoot, then turn the slip into a book and you have bought from Lello — the proper rite. The golden rule: book the first morning slot (9:00) online — midday shoulder-to-shoulder kills the magic — or the last evening hour. And its surroundings are gold: the Carmo azulejo and the Clérigos tower steps away.
The curving fork the planet knows.
Dignity in Work in colour.
Rua das Carmelitas 144, 4050-161 Porto