Things to do
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Clérigos Tower
An Italian architect who settled in Porto gave the city its landmark in 1763: a baroque granite bell tower seventy-five metres high, attached to an oval church. For a century ships used it to find the river mouth. Over two hundred steps spiral to a narrow balcony looking across the whole city. The stair is tight and single file, with a timed ticket.
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Dom Luís I Bridge
Two decks of wrought iron span the Douro gorge between Porto and the port lodges of Vila Nova de Gaia, the upper one carrying the metro and a walkway at rooftop height. Crossing on top gives the long view of the Ribeira waterfront, while the lower deck is the quick link between the two quays. Sunset draws a crowd to the Serra do Pilar terrace.
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Livraria Lello
A bookshop of 1906 with a neo-Gothic front, a stained glass ceiling and a curving crimson staircase that seems to pour down from the gallery. Crowds became unmanageable, so entry now requires a paid voucher, redeemable against the cost of a book. Reserve a time slot online. Even so it is packed, and the first slot of the morning is the tolerable one.
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Serralves
A contemporary art museum of 1999 by Álvaro Siza, Porto's Pritzker-winning architect, in white planes and carefully placed windows. It shares an eighteen-hectare park with a pink Art Deco villa, formal gardens, a farm and a raised walkway through the treetops. The estate lies west of the centre toward the sea. Combine it with the beach suburb of Foz.
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Palácio da Bolsa
The city's merchants built this stock exchange in the nineteenth century to impress foreign investors, and spent eighteen years on a single room: the Arab Room, a gilded oval hall modelled loosely on the Alhambra. Visits are by guided tour only, in several languages on the half hour. The former Franciscan church next door has an interior almost entirely covered in carved gilt wood.
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Ribeira
The medieval riverside quarter, a strip of arcaded quay backed by leaning houses in faded colours with washing on the balconies. The quayside restaurants are tourist fare; the steep alleys behind are where the district still lives. Flat-bottomed boats that once brought barrels down the river now run short cruises under the six bridges. The whole historic centre has been a UNESCO site since 1996.
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São Bento railway station
The main hall of the central station is lined with some twenty thousand blue and white tiles, painted by Jorge Colaço over eleven years from 1905. The large panels show battles and royal weddings. A coloured frieze above them runs through the history of transport and ends, fittingly, with a train. It is a working station, free to enter, and takes ten minutes.
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Vila Nova de Gaia
The south bank of the Douro, technically a separate city, where by old regulation all port wine was aged and shipped. The British, Dutch and Portuguese houses still keep their lodges here under signs visible from across the water. Most offer a cellar tour with a tasting, some by appointment. A cable car links the quay to the upper deck of the bridge.
