{"id":25,"date":"2015-10-25T22:06:10","date_gmt":"2015-10-25T22:06:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/46.101.163.178\/?p=25"},"modified":"2025-08-10T11:09:53","modified_gmt":"2025-08-10T11:09:53","slug":"why-do-kids-jump-from-d-luis-bridge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/portoalities.com\/en\/why-do-kids-jump-from-d-luis-bridge\/","title":{"rendered":"Why do kids jump from Luis I bridge in Porto?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

When you get to Porto it\u2019s mandatory to visit Ribeira, a small neighbourhood by the Douro river, part of Unesco\u2019s World Heritage.<\/a> The most important monument there is the famous Luis I bridge in Porto, and the best way to see it (and the other amazing bridges of Porto) is to take the 6 bridges cruise<\/a>.
Once you arrive in Ribeira, you may find it hard to keep your eyes from the young kids that jump from Luis I bridge in Porto to the Douro river, if you are lucky enough to catch them. These 20 meters jumps are so remarkable that they inspired a short movie called Meninos do Rio<\/a>, by Javier Macipe, in 2014.
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But you can trace these jumps on older movies, such as the famous Aniki B\u00f3b\u00f3<\/a> (1942), one of the first movies of the globally awarded Portuguese director Manoel de Oliveira.
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When these kids are already on their swimming suits, waiting on a ramshackle row for their moment to jump from Luis I bridge in Porto, one can only admire their courage: why do they jump? Is it a local tradition, an initiation ritual, or they do it just for fun? Has it always been like this? Can both women and men, young and old jump?
So many questions to be answered! If I was going to unveil all the history behind this question, I had to visit Ribeira, to spot down the older generation, the one that keeps the river secrets locked, to find the answer to this mystery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n