Journey to Portugal by José Saramago

The traveller is in the Cathedral square, overlooking the city. It is early morning. He came here to settle his route and choose an itinerary. The Cathedral is still shut, the episcopal palace seems remote. A cold breeze rises from the river. The traveller calibrates weather and distance, mentally tracing an encompassing arc with the square at its centre, and reckons everything he wants to see in Oporto contained within it. As a rule he doesn't bother with quite as many rigorous formalities, so he'll probably end up infringing his first rule. Fundamentally, he accepts the basic principle requiring him to note the ancient and picturesque and to disregard what's modern and banal.

In observance of this rule, to travel through cities and other places ends up as conservative a pastime as visiting museums: you follow this passage here, then take a turn around this room, pause in front of this glass case or that painting for just long enough to demonstrate to any other viewers the visitor's cultural credentials, and then proceed to the next passage, exhibition room, glass case, passage. New neighbourhoods or those still under construction aren't worth even asking about, and slums are neither comfortable nor agreeable places to obtain answers on. The traveller, as anyone could tell you, has every justification in seeking out prime sites of resplendent beauty. So he does, but with the accompanying resolution that he will never forget that the world has also its fair share of ugliness and poverty.