Porto, Portugal - where's the beef?

With a selection of 500 or so excursions offered around this particular cruise itinerary it is practically inevitable that there would be a few duds. Such outings usually comprise a few local items of marginal broader interest, cobbled together with a paragraph or two of effusive travelogue copy to sound like the discovery of the meaning of life. Our choice for Porto turned out to be one of these - watery soup indeed.
Porto is on the coast of northwest Portugal and has a population of 1.4 million making it the second largest city in the country after Lisbon. It is the port wine capital of the world with the product name, port, being taken directly from the city name. Located a short distance up the estuary of the River Douro, Porto has a more or less viable economy, diversified beyond fishing and port wine but otherwise obstinately stuck in time without the momentum to move on.
Our experience was further dampened, literally, by a constant heavy overcast with light drizzle which dulled whatever bright spots there might have been. But, as they say, "You shouldn't have joined if you can't take a joke" so we soldiered on as follows...
More pictures here.