‘NOS em D’Bandada’, Porto for one night only.

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Porto, one of the biggest street parties I’ve ever been to and this all happened by chance...

During a brief trip away to Portugal this summer, myself and three other friends intended on travelling up to Porto on the 17^th September as we knew we only had time to fit in the sights of this great drink loving city for one night only. When we spoke to locals in Lisbon about our intentions to road trip up that day we were in for a little surprise.

It so happens that this specific evening Porto would come alive with music & culture from all around Portugal, bringing a togetherness of foodies, locals and party lovers. Oh and four likely folk from The Midlands, UK. The festival was in its 6^th consecutive year of running and with no starting point you’re let loose to just navigate your way around the centre of Porto stumbling across stage after stage of Electronic, House, Jazz, Drum and Bass, EDM, and many more vibes.

The ‘NOS em D’Bandada’ festival happens once a year and other than the full moon party in Thailand is one of the biggest parties I’ve been to. We arrived just after midday at our hostel...Pilot Hostel (Recommend). With generous introductions of how to get amongst the best of what the city had to offer and vouchers for everything from free port to discounted bakery goods in the morning, we dropped our stuff and headed off for some food. The streets were already crammed with locals as we sat down for some pre rave food. Parades of street dancers grouped, sliding past as we took in the sites.

8pm...We arrive back at the hostel expecting the busiest hostel we’ve ever stayed at and to our disappointment, nothing, the whole bar area deserted. Presumably out and about on the streets of Porto or is 8pm still too early? After agreeing to ‘wait and see what happens’, mainly swayed by our free port vouchers, we went to the bar. At a distinctly memorable moment, the point I realised that the bar now had a crowd of people being served, felt like I had literally just taken a sip of my first port shot. I hadn’t, in fact we were quite a few drinks down and I look up to see another 10 shots of absinthe lined up. For sure, this was going to be start of a downward spiral and we hadn’t even adventured outside yet.

11:30pm and we eventually walk out of the hostel to be hit with bright lights, thousands of people and a heavy bassline. No complaints from anyone as we’ve gathered a small mix of travellers from around the world with us to experience the D’Bandada. As we head around the corner following the movement of the street we see a wave of bodies all shuffling, traffic like patterns to get either further away or closer to a DJ standing on a stage, suspended high up above the masses. 6ft tall speakers playing Drum and Bass providing the heart beat motion for the crowd. Strobe lights protruding every possible angle from the surrounding trees.

Spending some time ducking in and out of bars whilst weaving our way to the DJ, we all saw the summer mood of the Portuguese in everyone’s face. Everyone dancing, everyone happy, everyone contempt with life. All of this from the locals...? It was hard to believe having come from the English summer time that summer was actually almost at an end. The mood mostly due to the temperatures that summer brings most countries and without this summer season kicking in, people almost feel cheated without it. With these feelings branching out from the DJ also it was hard not to enjoy the moment and attempt to make our way even closer to the stage.



A few bumps and ‘excuse me’s’ later we had made some space amongst the crowd to dance and to see the night out. Needless to say the festival was something we hadn’t expected, and this is exactly what travelling is about...unless you’re out there in the world seeing it, living it, breathing it, life experiences won’t happen on their own and you’ll have missed out.

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