porto, portugal
I was able to treat my mom to a trip here in the summer of 2023 and fell in love instantly. Porto felt so different from Lisbon, and I highly recommend visiting if you’re spending any time in Portugal. It’s small so you only need a couple days here, and they will be magical.
local port + chocolate courtesy of our hotel :)
getting here/where we stayed
Prior to Porto, I was in Lisbon for a month where my mom met up with me. We took the train up and it was an extremely easy and comfortable experience. I booked the tickets online ahead of time (don’t use railninja, they mark up prices like crazy) and it cost around $60 total for both of us. The train was pretty quick, smooth, and comfy. Not quite on the level of the shinkansen in Japan but better than amtrak. There’s also an airport in Porto that we flew out of on our way to Dublin. Neither is particularly far from the city center and ubers in Portugal are very affordable.
I booked us a hotel at the Laranjais for our stay and it was PERFECT. The customer service was exceptional, our room was beautiful and comfortable and had everything we needed, and it was in a great location. AND it was shockingly affordable for the quality (I found and booked through booking.com). I definitely recommend this spot. It was close to everything and very walkable. We didn’t use any ubers or public transportation here except getting to/from the train station and airport.
quick info about Porto
Porto is located in northern Portugal, on the Douro River. It is well known for being the home of Port wine, but all of the wineries are actually across the river, in the separate city of Vila Nova de Gaia. The popular neighborhoods of Porto for tourism are historic Ribeira, located along the riverfront, and Baixa, the downtown area that includes the Sao Bento train station, flower street (R. das Flores) and other famous landmarks. Our hotel was located right near the City Hall and I think this area was the perfect spot to stay.
West of Porto, down the Douro river is the famous Douro valley, where all the grapes used to make port wine are grown and harvested before being sent to Vila Nova de Gaia for aging and selling. If you have any interest in wine, taking a day trip here is highly highly recommended during your visit to Porto. It’s a stunningly beautiful area, a great way to see some of the countryside, and was a highlight of our trip.
As noted below, we basically spent 1 day exploring Vila Nova de Gaia with port tastings, one day on the Porto side seeing the famous sights, and one day visiting the Douro Valley via a tour. I’m biased but I think this was the perfect breakdown of activities for our stay. We saw a ton, walked a ton, but still felt relaxed.
Vila Nova de Gaia + the Ponte Luis I, as seen from Ribeira
our itinerary (in brief)
day 1 (arrival):
afternoon: arrive in Porto via train from Lisbon, check in and enjoy our complimentary port
evening: walk around the neighborhood, grab dinner + wine. We were early to bed because ya girl was TIRED
day 2:
morning: walking down flower street and around Porto, coffee/brunch
midday: port tastings + a winery tour in Vila Nova de Gaia, exploring this side of the city
evening: sunset on the river, then a long walk back to our hotel with a stop for dinner
day 3:
morning: wake up in a panic to phone calls that we are missing the tour I booked because I put it in my calendar as the wrong day. have a minor freak out. be reassured by the tour company that we can actually join the same tour tomorrow and everything is fine. it’s okay! i still cried though
midday: after some extra hours of sleep, get this day started for real. We wandered the city checking out some markets, cathedrals, and the famous Sao Bento train station
evening: early night, grabbed dinner at an asian-fusion place near our hotel. Ironically, this was my mom’s favorite meal of the trip
day 4:
Full day tour of the douro valley! this was highly recommended to us and so much fun. More details below.
day 5 (departure:
Pack up, check out, and head to the airport for our flight to Dublin. We got there over 2 hours early and spent both of those two hours just waiting at the Ryanair check-in line. Thankfully, our flight was delayed or else most of us wouldn’t have even been able to get on it. It was awful and I was so cranky. Get there early, you’ve been warned.
flower street + Ribeira
R. das Flores, or flower street, is a very popular walking street lined with shops, restaurants, and museums. It can get very crowded but there’s a lot to explore here, and we took our time wandering through on our walk down to the water.
Ribeira is probably the most popular neighborhood in the city, as it’s right on the Douro river and offers beautiful views across the water of Vila Nova de Gaia. There are tons of restaurants along the waterfront strip with outdoor seating. It was absolutely packed here with people wandering, eating, taking photos, and lots of merchants set up selling souvenirs. We kind of just walked through the area and kept moving, up and across the Luis I bridge, on a mission to try some port.
Vila Nova de Gaia + port tastings
There are a few ways to get over the river to Vila Nova de Gaia, the simplest of which is just walking over the lower pedestrian bridge from the Ribeira waterfront. There is also a funicular on the Porto side where you can pay a few Euros to take you up the hill to the top part of the bridge, for more sweeping scenic views and a super popular sunset watching spot. I wanted to do this but ended up running out of time/being too tired to squeeze it in. Once you get over to Vila Nova de Gaia via the upper bridge, you can either walk or take a gondola down to the river.
We decided to do a tour + tasting at Burmester first, and booked a spot in person about an hour in advance, then killed some time walking around and soaking in the beautiful day. It was a very nice tour with great explanations about the history of port wine and how the aging process works, as well as descriptions of the different types of port. After the 45ish minute tour, we got to taste 3 different ports each.
view of the Luis I Bridge + Porto from Burmester
We originally planned to do another tour after this one but ended up deciding that it probably wasn’t worth the extra money and time for a tour when all we really wanted to do was try more wine :) The tours are great! But once you’ve done one and get the basic info, they can get a bit repetitive. Plus we knew we had a full-day tour in the Douro valley coming soon. So we found an open table outside at Cálem, ordered ourselves a charcuterie board and a 5-wine flight each. I’ve tried a lot of wine in my life and I can’t say port is my favorite, but it’s always fun to try new things and we had such a nice time sitting outside, people watching, and enjoying our wine.
After our wine tastings we were feeling gooooood and decided to just walk around by the water and see what else there was to see. There are several shops and restaurants and a ton of other winery options on this side of the river, plus lots of artists and merchants set up outside. The weather was so lovely on our time here, we were just enjoying the sun and a break from the heat we had in Lisbon. Below you can see the gondola that runs across the waterfront in Vila Nova de Gaia. We stayed on this side of the river until sunset, when we started making our way back to our hotel.
the gondola over Vila Nova de Gaia
It was a stunning evening, and experiencing the sunset by the water is an absolute must if you are staying in Porto. Find a place with outdoor seating and grab a glass of Portuguese wine and you’re having my ideal evening. For dinner, we went to Brasao near our hotel. I wanted to try a francesinha, a famous sandwich originating in Porto that consists of steak, ham, and cheese between toasted white bread, covered in melted cheese and a tomato-beer gravy. The sandwich apparently started as a Portuguese adaptation of the croque monsieur, which makes a lot of sense. My mom was kind of disgusted by the whole thing and I can admit that it didn’t look the most appetizing, but tasted amazing.
Mercado do Bolhao
On our second full day in Porto, after waking up panicked realizing I had marked our Douro valley tour down on the wrong day, we started at the Bolhao market. It was a huge, super clean covered market with a big selection of local food, drinks, and souvenirs. We started with some Portuguese pastries and I got a glass of vino verde for like 2 euros because I couldn’t turn down that kind of deal, while my mom spent an hour picking out the perfect dishes to bring home (love u mom).
Igreja Paroquial de Santo Ildefonso
After our market breakfast we decided to check out some famous sites. We stopped by the Church of Saint Ildefonso, a stunning 18th century church with blue tiles adorning the facade. It’s a pretty small church and you can tour inside for only a euro or two each. Tbh the inside was nothing spectacular but it was pretty on the outside!
São Bento train station
This train station is a super popular stop on many Porto itineraries, as it is adorned by the traditional Portuguese blue painted tiles (azulejos) all over the inside. It’s very pretty for a train station but at the end of the day is still just a train station, so we walked through here pretty quickly, got some pics, and moved on. (If you’re exploring more of Portugal and looking to really see some azulejos, check out the Mosteiro de São Vicente de Fora in the Alfama neighborhood of Lisbon)
Sé do Porto
The Porto Cathedral was our last stop of the day, and worth a stop for the views over the city even if you have no interest in cathedrals. It costs a few euros to visit the inside, and it was beautiful! The churches/monasteries/cathedrals etc do start to blend together a bit especially after we spent a day in Lisbon visiting a few, but I enjoyed the beautiful stone arches here and the azulejos everywhere you looked.
After the Cathedral, we walked back to our hotel and basically crashed for the night. We were ready to relax a bit and wanted to get lots of rest before an early wake up, so we grabbed dinner at an asian-fusion restaurant Boa-Bao near our hotel. It was sooooo good, we each had a bao bun and then split some tom kha khai. If you’re tired of Portuguese food (which is truthfully not my favorite, where is the flavor?????) then this is a great option.
DOURO VALLEY TOUR DAY
First and foremost, HUGE shoutout to the customer service at Living Tours for being extremely accommodating when we totally missed our original reservation. I was so upset at myself for potentially losing out on this experience (and losing money) and they were able to squeeze us on another tour with no problems. It was such a relief and i’m so glad we could do it. This is the tour we booked, via viator. There are a tonnnn of options and I’m sure all of them are good, but I will definitely continue to recommend this one based on our experience with their customer support + the great tour guide we had.
The tour started out with a stop in Amarante for 45 mins or so to stretch our legs and grab breakfast. It was a beautiful little town and we enjoyed our breakfast pastries. I wish we had more time here but we had to get to the main attraction
The next stop was very quick at a dam to look at the locks (meh) and then onto the first winery of the day, which was Quinta da Roêda, home of Croft port. We got a tour around the vineyard and learned about how in the UNESCO-protected Douro valley, there are strict guidelines where vines are not allowed to be watered by anything but rain after year 2 of growth (the rosemary bushes that line the end of the vines, however, are allowed watering) and how the terraces are made and vines are planted. They also talked about the harvesting and aging processes before we got a sample of 3 port wines.
Our next activity was a boat cruise down the Douro. Now, this was a beautiful experience but honestly could have been better. The majority of the seats on the boat were covered/inside which I guess was appreciated by some people but I wanted to be out in the sun feeling the breeze (we got lucky and nabbed seats in the front of the boat). There also was no tour/commentary or anything as we cruised, it was just a ride up and back down the river. The views were incredible and it was a perfect day, but I would have loved to learn more about the history of the area, the other quintas, or idk anything else.
After the boat cruise, we drove through more of the valley and got to soak up some views through the tour bus windows (would have loved to pull over at a scenic overlook but alas, that was not on the itinerary). Then we stopped at the second winery of the day, which I can’t remember the name of, for lunch, wine, and another port tasting. This place was absolutely beautiful and the wine + lunch were delicious. After we finished eating, we were invited down into an aging room for the tasting. The guide here was hilarious and we had so much fun at this tasting. After that we loaded back up into the bus and headed back to Porto.
view of the douro valley through the bus window
After getting back to Porto, we decided to walk down to the waterfront to grab a drink and enjoy our last night. The sunset wasn’t quite as stunning as earlier in the week but still beautiful. Even more exciting was watching the supermoon rise over Vila Nova de Gaia. We grabbed pizza for dinner, took too many pics of the moon, and packed up for our flight to Dublin the next day (PSA: get to the Porto airport early!!!!!)
I absolutely loved Porto and highly recommend a stop here if you plan on visiting Portugal. It felt very different than Lisbon and I felt like 3 days was the perfect amount of time. My Lisbon recap/recommendations will be coming soon!
The perfect itinerary for a trip to Porto, including Vila Nova de Gaia and a tour of the Douro Valley.