The best things to do in Porto
Porto isn’t big on honey-pot, sightseeing 'must sees'. It’s a city for pottering, a place for placidly passing the time. If you’ve got the energy, then see as much of the city as you can on foot. You’ll find little treats and surprises on almost every street: a tiled wall mural here, a pavement market there. Be sure to eat a good breakfast: Porto’s contour-curving street plan turns sightseeing into a proper work-out. As in life, many of the best things to do in Porto are free, from the former prison cell with one of the best vistas of the old town to the veritable tile emporium Banco de Materiais. Elsewhere, there's a city tour with former architects and the best place for a tipple of port wine.
Cedofeita
Ogle at the azulejos
Banco de Materiais is home to all manner of decorative objects that once beautified the exterior of Porto’s townhouses and churches. It is pitched as a museum but feels more like the huge store cupboard of a set-design company. Porcelain statues stand beside piles of painted roof tiles, colourful street signs contrast with crazy floor tiles. And in case you haven’t had your fill of them walking the streets, there are oodles of azulejos – Porto’s famous tin-glazed ceramic tiles – to admire.
Insider's tip: One of the best in situ examples is to be found on the mosaic walls of Sao Bento train station. Swivel on your heel in the departure hall and you can see images from Porto’s history spin by in dazzling cobalt. The city’s churches serve as consistently divine exemplars of azulejo artistry, as the nearby Igreja de St Ildefonso and Capela das Almas prove without doubt.
Address: 71 Praça Carlos Alberto
Contact: 00 351 223 393 492
Opening times: Mon-Fri 10am-12pm, 2.30pm-5.30pm; Sat 10am-12.30pm, 1.30pm-6pm; closed Sundays and holidays
Nearest metro: Trinidade
Price: Free
Baixa
Look for Harry Potter influences
JK Rowling lived in Porto for a while and, local legend has it, regularly frequented Majestic Cafe (Rua Santa Catarina 112; 00 351 22 200 3887) while she was working on her first book, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. The famous staircase at the Lello Bookshop (Rua das Carmelitas 144), meanwhile, is said to be the inspiration behind the library at Hogwarts. Look carefully as you walk around the streets of Porto and you’ll find other possible references. A house on a hill in Gaia with two towers. Groups of university students dressed in black capes. The eagle-eyed might even spot a Nimbus 2000 among the hoard of merchandise at old-school brush shop Escovaria de Belomonte (Rua de Belomonte; 00 351 22 200 2469).
Insider's tip: In May, to celebrate graduation from university, the final-year students hold a week-long party called Queima das Fitas (literally, 'burning of the ribbons'). There's lots of live music and general Hogwartian frivolities.
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Lose yourself amid bulging bookshelves
Livraria Chaminé de Mota is technically a shop, but this emporium of all things bookish feels more like a much-loved private museum. Packed in over four floors, the hundreds of thousands of books represent a lifetime of collecting. In the basement alone, there is months’ worth of fruitful rummaging to be had. It's located on the busy Rua das Flores, and is just one of more than 20 second-hand or antiquarian bookshops dotted around the city.
Insider's tip: The higher floors are filled with maps, typewriters, printing and bookbinding equipment, music boxes, gramophones, and printed ephemera. Permission is needed to view these, but, as long as you smile, it’s nearly always given.
Contact: 00 351 22 200 5380; livrariachaminedam.wixsite.com
Opening times: Mon-Sat 9.30am-1pm, Sun closed
Nearest metro: São Bento
Price: Free to enter
Santo Ildefenso
Mingle in the market
Every European city worth its salt should have its own open-air market and Porto is no exception. Since the 1850s, traders have been flogging their wares at the two-storey, neoclassical Bolhão Market building in the heart of downtown. As popular with locals as it is with tourists, you can lose hours chatting and haggling with the market’s stallholders or just wander at leisure along the aisles of fresh-smelling produce.
Insider's tip: The market is currently housed in a nearby mall due to renovations, but you’ll find all the same characters – the fishmongers and grocers, the bakers and butchers, the florists and haberdashers – still doing what they’ve always done: sell, sell, sell.
Address: La Vie Shopping Centre, Rua Formosa 214
Contact: 00 351 22 332 6024; mercadobolhao.pt
Opening hours: Mon-Fri, 7am-5pm; Sat, 7am-1pm
Price: £
Watch as pastéis de nata are made
Pass any café in Porto and you will see trays of pastéis de nata, Portuguese custard tarts, staring temptingly at you out from the window. Peer through the window at Manteigaria to see the café’s chefs working their confectionary magic. Working on marble slabs in the open kitchen, they roll out long strips of pastry, mix up the custard in huge vats of creaminess, and then stir in handfuls of cinnamon and spices. But be warned: it takes willpower to remain outside looking in for long.
Insider's tip: Cased in light crust flakiness and topped with a divine, creamy glaze, these parcels of sweet-toothed delight look as though they might have fallen from heaven. Step inside the shop to try one, and be sure to dust yours off with cinnamon or sugar for the full effect.
Contact: 00 351 22 202 2169; facebook.com/manteigaria.oficial
Opening times: Mon-Sun, 8am-9pm
Nearest metro: Bolhão
Price: Free to watch, pastries £
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Massarelos
Treat yourself to a botanical breather
Set high above the River Douro, with fine views over the city and out towards the ocean, the Jardins do Palácio de Cristal offer some welcome space and verdancy in Porto’s otherwise close-pressed built environment. Hunt down the mayor’s official residence or the look-out turret for the optimum viewpoints. Laid out by the 19th-century landscape architect Émile David, the Romantic-inspired gardens are also worth a walkround. This botanical refuge also plays host to the fine Almeida Garrett Municipal Library and the Galeria Municipal do Porto, which have regular cultural events and contemporary art exhibitions, respectively.
Insider's tip: For children, there’s a great outdoor playground for running off steam. When they tire of the swings, the garden’s resident population of peacocks are always worth a gander.
Address: Rua Dom Manuel II
Opening times: Apr-Sept, daily, 8am-9pm; Oct-March, daily, 8am-7pm
Nearest metro: Aliados
Price: Free
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Ribeira
Gape up at the old city from the river
Porto’s biggest attraction is the River Douro and its immediate environs. The old city sweeps down vertiginous hillsides to the river’s banks. The steep descent may be hard on the knees, but it allows for spectacular views back up to the city above. Standing out above the reddish sea of clay roof tiles, the Sé (Cathedral) and Clerigos tower punctuate the skyline with particularly dramatic effect.
Insider's tip:Porto’s cityscape is at its most stunning from the river’s southern bank, which is officially the terrain of its sister city, Vila Nova de Gaia. Cross one of the six spectacular bridges that span the Douro. The most famous is the 172-metre wide, metal arch Dom Luís I Bridge. Pedestrians can cross on both levels, although beware of the Metro train on the uppermost part.
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Hop aboard a tram and ride the rails
Porto’s tram dates back to 1895, and is one of the oldest electrified transport systems in Europe. It's almost exclusively a tourist curiosity these days, the old wood-panelled carriages travel back and forth along three separate routes. Line 1 is the most popular, running as it does from the heart of the old town in Ribeira out along the Douro River to the outskirts of the beach-fronted neighbourhood of Foz.
Insider tip: Jump off at Masserlos to check out the Tram Museum (Alameda de Basílio Teles 51; 00 351 22 615 8185). This repository of old trams and carriages is an oddly emotive experience – a last resting place for the workhorses of their day.
Contact: 00 351 226 158 158; stcp.pt
Opening times: Everyday (limited service on Sundays and national holidays)
Price: £
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Lapa
See the city through the eyes of an architect
Set up informally by a group of three provocative, almost-out-of-work architects, the Worst Tours of Porto provide an alternative way to see the city’s sights. Tours are tailored to each individual, with the guides taking into account special interests and physical capacities, as well as existing knowledge of the city. There is no charge for the tours, which take three to four hours, but donations are welcomed.
Insider's tip: Ask if they can take you to the Bairro da Bouça, a 1970s social housing complex close to Lapa metro station, and tell you the story of Siza Vieira, one of the city's most inventive modern architects.
Contact: 00 351 924 312 575; theworsttours.weebly.com
Nearest metro: Marquês
Price: Free, donations/tipping only
Vila Nova de Gaia
Give those green fingers a go
Tucked away on a hilltop in Vila Nova de Gaia sit the fragrant fields and nurseries of Cantinho das Aromáticas. This beautiful organic farm produces more than 150 different plant species. Visitors are invited to wander along the neat rows of aromatic flowers, medicinal plants and kitchen herbs, as well as explore the farm’s ancient dovecote.
Insider's tip:Opportunities also exist to muck in, with special volunteer days for those want to try their hand at harvesting or drying flowers. For fear of stating the obvious, spring and summer mark the best time to visit.
Contact: 00 351 22 77 10 301; cantinhodasaromaticas.pt
Opening times: Mon-Fri, 9am-6pm; Sat, 9.30am-6pm
Price: £
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Wet your whistle at the city's oldest port wine company
The port wine cellars across the Douro in Vila Nova de Gaia offer tours that are most definitely in the touristy category. If you fancy something a little more low key, head to CV Kopke, the city’s oldest port wine company (founded in 1638). The result of some good old-fashioned commercial protectionism, the firm takes its names from CV Kopke, who was sent by Germany’s Hanseatic League to stop the Portuenses muscling in on their trading interests. Today, the port producer is owned by Sogevinus Group. They don’t offer tours, but are happy to chat about their different port wines and the company history.
Insider's tip: There’s a room with picture windows and great views of Porto. Don’t leave without trying at least a sip of Colheita, a single vintage-dated Tawny Port for which the CV Kopke is rightly famous.
Contact:00 351 223 746 660; kopke1638.com
Opening times: May-October, daily, 10am-7pm; Nov-April, daily, 10am-6pm
Nearest metro: Jardim do Morro
Price: £
Arrábida
Browse fossils, skeletons and more paleontological treasures
After spending years hidden away in fusty storage rooms in one of the University of Porto’s anonymous faculty buildings, the city’s best (okay, its only) collection of fossils, skeletons and other petrified paleontological treasures has been given a new lease of life. The hoard forms the basis for the city’s new Natural History and Science Museum. Housed in a stately mansion, the museum’s interactive and informative exhibits have proved a hit with both locals and visitors alike. It was formerly the family home of the 20th-century Portuguese poet and writer Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen. As a child she would say she lived in a house big enough to house a whale, and she was right, as you will see when you visit.
Insider's tip: The four-acre grounds of the former Andresen mansion where the museum is housed now play host to Porto’s Botanical Gardens. Highlights include the cacti garden, a greenhouse brimming with exotic plants and a delightful rose garden. Entrance is free.
Contact: 00 351 220 408 727; mhnc.up.pt
Opening times: Tue-Sun, 10am-6pm
Nearest metro: Casa de Música
Price: ££
Vitória
Discover a fabulous view of the old city
After more than two centuries housing Porto’s felons, the 18th-century Cadeia de Relação jail closed its padlocked doors in 1974. In 2000, the labyrinthine building reopened as the Portuguese Centre for Photography. Spread out over three floors, the museum boasts a mix of temporary exhibitions, library resources and a permanent collection of cameras and photographic paraphernalia.
Insider's tip: Climb to the top floor and make your way to the east-facing former prison cell, where a fabulous panoramic view of the old city can be had. The stone-walled room was once home to Camilo Castelo Branco, Portugal’s famed 19th-century writer, who was locked up for adultery.
Contact: 00 351 220 046 300; cpf.pt
Opening times: Mon-Fri, 10am-12:30pm, 2pm-6pm; Sat-Sun, 2pm-5pm
Nearest metro: Clérigos
Price: Free
Matosinhos
Spend the afternoon surfing and snacking
With a wide sandy beach and great surf breaks, Matosinhos is a popular hangout spot for young and old alike. For beginners to surfing, there are several surf shacks along the shoreline that will set you on your way for a small fee; try Surfing Life Club (Avenida General Norton de Matos 369; 00 351 937 567 092) where lessons are €20 (£18). Matosinhos isn’t especially 'fancy' (that’s more the Foz neighbourhood next door). It is a working port, in fact. Amid the ferries and cruise liners, you might just spot some fishing boats. And if you don’t, then head a few blocks from the beach and you’ll smell them. A good portion of the day’s catch finds its way to the bustling Mercado Municipal, where the market’s talkative stallholders will happily show their catch of the day.
Insider's tip: Nearby, on Rua Heróis de França, the street is lined with restaurants grilling fresh fish. O Lusitano (00 351 22 937 5902) is one of the larger ones, but you really can’t go wrong with any of them.
Contact: 00 351 22 937 6577; facebook.com/MercadoMunicipaldeMatosinhos
Opening hours: Mon, 7am-2pm; Tues-Fri, 6.30am-6pm; Sat, 6am-4.30pm
Nearest metro: Brito Capelo
Price: £
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Miragaia
Size up the street art
For a while, street art was frowned on in Porto, with the municipality sending out squadrons of paint-wielding spoilsports to eliminate graffiti from the public eye. Now, thanks to a change of mayor, public wall art is back in vogue. Authorised paintings now plaster the sides of facades across the city. Among the tags to look out for are Frederic Draw, Fedor, Oker and Alma. For a stunning example of the cutting-edge of alfresco urban art, head down to Rua de Ancira in the riverine Miragaia neighbourhood where you’ll find a house with a one-eyed face carved across its entire front elevation. Created via an innovative blasting technique, the two-storey carving is the handiwork of Portugal’s best-known street artist, Vhils (Alexandre Farto).
Insider's tip:On a far smaller scale, check out the utterly Instagrammable designs (especially those on the electricity boxes) along the bottom of Rua de Miguel Bombarda: it’s pitch-perfect pictorial comedy.
