Explore Porto

Why visit Porto

Porto is Portugal's wonderfully gritty, deeply atmospheric second city — a hillside cluster of tiled houses, granite churches, and steep cobbled lanes cascading down to the Douro river, where the famous port-wine lodges line the opposite bank in Vila Nova de Gaia. The UNESCO-listed Ribeira riverfront district at the bottom is the most photographed part of the city; from here you can walk across the dramatic double-deck Dom Luís I iron bridge (1886, designed by a Gustave Eiffel student) to the port lodges of Sandeman, Taylor's, Graham's, and Croft for tastings of vintage, tawny, and white port. Back on the city side, the spectacular São Bento railway station (entirely tiled with 20,000 blue-and-white azulejos depicting Portuguese history), the dramatic baroque Clérigos Tower (climb its 240 steps for the panorama), and the famous Livraria Lello bookshop with its neo-Gothic curved staircase (which reputedly inspired the Harry Potter library scenes — J.K. Rowling lived in Porto in the early 1990s) are essential. Don't miss the brilliant Serralves Museum of contemporary art with its Art Deco villa and gardens, the working Bolsão produce market, and a slow lunch at one of the simple fish restaurants on the Cais da Ribeira where you eat polvo (octopus) and drink vinho verde while river boats drift past below.