I have watched a lot of sunsets in my life.

From beaches and mountains. From boats and balconies. From cities, deserts and islands. Sometimes alone. Sometimes with Alexis, family or friends. And often with a scattering of other people who happened to be in the same place at the same time.

But I don’t think I have ever experienced a sunset quite like the one we witnessed yesterday in Porto, Portugal.

Actually, we weren’t quite in Porto.

We were across the Douro River in Vila Nova de Gaia, the city where much of the world’s port wine has traditionally been aged after the grapes are grown upstream in Portugal’s Douro Valley.

Our destination was Jardim do Morro, a grassy hillside park overlooking Porto.

And apparently, at sunset, everybody goes there.

I exaggerate, of course.

But not by much.

There were thousands of people.

Couples stretched out on the grass. Families. Young people in groups. Older people. Children. People leaning against the rocks. People sharing pizza. People with wine or beer or soft drinks in their hands. Some wearing sunglasses as the late afternoon sun dropped lower over Porto.

Someone was playing a guitar.

Nobody seemed particularly hurried.

And, most strikingly, nobody seemed to be there because anything was happening.

There was no concert.

No fireworks.

No festival.

No championship game.

No celebrity.

The attraction was the sun.

And the sun, as far as I know, had not advertised the event.

Getting there was almost as remarkable as the gathering itself.

We boarded Porto’s Metro underground near the center of the city. Within minutes the train emerged into daylight and headed across the upper level of the magnificent Dom Luís I Bridge, high above the Douro.

The Metro tracks run right down the center of the bridge.

And alongside them were hundreds—probably thousands over the course of the evening—of pedestrians walking in both directions.

There were no enormous barriers separating everyone from the modern Metro train passing just feet away.

People and trains simply seemed to coexist.

It was another one of those moments when an American traveler thinks: Really? You can do that?

Apparently you can.

We stepped off at Jardim do Morro, joined the crowd, found ourselves a place and waited.

And that is when what initially seemed like a nice travel experience began to feel like something else.

I looked around at this sea of humanity.

Different ages. Different skin colors. Different languages. Different styles of dress. Visitors, certainly, but obviously many locals as well.

All gathered for perhaps the most ordinary event imaginable.

The end of another day.

And I began thinking about how unusual that really is.

We Americans are pretty good at gathering in large numbers.

We gather for football games.

Concerts.

Political rallies.

Parades.

Fireworks.

Marathons.

Festivals.

Events.

Usually there has to be a reason.

There has to be something on the calendar.

Something has to be organized.

Tickets have to be sold.

Someone has to perform.

Something has to happen.

But here were thousands of people gathering to watch something that happens every single day.

The sun went down yesterday.

It will go down today.

And, with reasonable confidence, I predict that it will go down again tomorrow.

Yet somehow that did not diminish its importance.

Perhaps it increased it.

Because nobody was trying to accomplish anything.

There was no deliverable.

No productivity.

No return on investment.

Nobody needed to get anywhere.

For a little while, the only assignment was:

Be here.

Watch.

Listen.

Sit with someone you love.

Have a drink.

Eat a slice of pizza.

Hear somebody play a guitar.

And watch the light change over the river.

What made the sunset memorable was not only the light over Porto.

It was the sight of thousands of people agreeing, without ever saying so, that this ordinary moment deserved their full attention.

That may be my strongest first impression of Porto.

The city seems remarkably calm to me. Casual. Relaxed. Unhurried.

I realize I have been here only a few days, so perhaps I am committing the traveler’s sin of making sweeping judgments from tiny samples.

But sometimes first impressions tell you something.

And what struck me yesterday was that thousands of people seemed willing to give an hour of their lives to absolutely nothing except experiencing an hour of their lives.

That is not nothing.

Maybe that is the point.

Tomorrow morning Alexis and I begin our bicycle pilgrimage along the Camino de Santiago, riding electric bikes from Porto toward Santiago de Compostela.

A pilgrimage, I suppose, is partly about learning to notice things we normally hurry past.

I had expected those lessons to begin once we got on our bicycles.

Apparently, Porto decided to give me the first one early.

As the sun finally disappeared, Alexis and I walked back across the Dom Luís I Bridge toward Porto.

Behind us, the crowd slowly began to disperse.

Tomorrow evening, weather permitting, I suspect many of them will be back.

Another sunset.

Nothing special.

And perhaps something very special indeed.