PORTO · PORTUGAL
The city the Douro built.
Port-lodge tastings and six-bridges river cruises, the old town and the tiled churches on foot, fado after dark, and the long day up the Douro Valley. Porto, Gaia and the north of Portugal, with the best way to do each.
Only here
The port, the valley and the voice.
Plenty of cities have boat trips and walking tours. Tasting port where it comes of age, a day in the world’s oldest wine region, and fado sung three feet away belong to this city and this river alone.
Aged across the river
Port in the Gaia Lodges
Port can be grown only in the Douro and, by long tradition, aged only in the cool riverside lodges of Vila Nova de Gaia. Cross the Dom Luis bridge and you can taste a tawny that has sat in oak longer than you have been alive, in the cellar where it was made. Nowhere else pours it at the source.
- 1 Porto: Cálem Cellar Tour, Fado Show & Wine Tasting
- 2 Porto: Taylor’s Port Cellars & Tasting
- 3 Porto: Cockburn’s Port Lodge Tour and Tasting
The oldest wine region
A Day Up the Douro
The Douro was mapped and protected in 1756, the first demarcated wine region in the world. Hand-cut terraces climb hundreds of metres from the water, family quintas pour their own vintages, and both the road and the river lead east into the hills. The day from Porto most people remember longest.
- 1 From Porto: Douro Valley w/ Boat Tour, Wine Tasting & Lunch
- 2 Complete Douro Valley Wine Tour with Lunch, Wine Tastings and River Cruise
- 3 Douro Valley: Wine Tour with Lunch, Tastings & River Cruise
Sung, not performed
Fado After Dark
Fado is Portugal’s blues, a single voice and a guitarra wringing saudade out of the dark, and UNESCO lists it as heritage of humanity. In Porto you hear it in small rooms over dinner and a glass of port, close enough to watch the singer’s hands. You can play the recordings anywhere. You can only feel it here.
- 1 Porto: Live Fado Show with Glass of Port Wine
- 2 Porto: Cálem Cellar Tour, Fado Show & Wine Tasting
- 3 Porto: Authentic Fado Show, Port Wine & Handmade Instruments
If you do one thing
The one nearly everyone books first.
More travellers build their Porto trip around this than anything else here.
The classics
Porto's Most Popular Tours
Six-bridges cruises, Douro wine days, port-lodge tastings and fado nights. What most travellers come to Porto for.
Where to begin
The experiences a Porto trip is built around.
The Douro Valley, the river cruises, the port cellars of Gaia, the old town on foot, the fado rooms and the food. The handful most trips are planned around, and the best way to do each.
The big day trip
How to see the Douro Valley.
The valley starts a couple of hours upriver, so how you go shapes the whole day. Three ways to reach the Douro from Porto, by road, by river, and in a small group.
Vila Nova de Gaia
Where the port comes of age.
Cross the Dom Luis bridge and the whole south bank is lined with port lodges, the names you know painted across the rooftops. Inside, vintages rest in oak for years in the cool river air before anyone pours a drop. A cellar tour and a tasting flight is the simplest way to understand the wine that built the city.
Read the guide: the best port cellar tours in Gaia →Porto on a plate
Come to Porto hungry.
The city feeds you well and cheaply: a francesinha under its beer-and-tomato sauce, seafood straight off the Matosinhos boats, a pastel de nata still warm from the oven, and the tiled stalls of the Bolhao market. Food and wine tours string the best of it together, usually with a glass of something local in hand.
See the food and wine tours →The river
The river that brought the port down.
The Douro runs nine hundred kilometres out of Spain and meets the Atlantic right here, under six bridges strung between Porto and Gaia. For three centuries the flat-bottomed rabelo boats carried the port down from the valley on this water. Cross it on a cruise, under sail, or at golden hour.
River cruises & boat trips →On foot
The old town is best walked.
Porto stacks up a steep granite hillside, all stairways, tiled facades and alleys that open onto the river. The blue azulejos of Sao Bento, the Clerigos tower, the Lello bookshop and the Ribeira quays sit within an hour’s walk, and a guide turns the climb into the story of the place.
- 1 The Unvanquished Tour in Porto City Center
- 2 Porto Walking Tour, Lello Bookshop, River Cruise and Cable Car
- 3 Porto: City Highlights 3-Hour Guided Electric Bike Tour
By pace
Pick your speed.
Porto rewards slowing right down and rewards roaming. Spend the day at a tasting table, on your feet in the old town, or out past the city entirely.
Slow and savoured
Tastings and long lunches.Port flights in the Gaia lodges, a riverside table, an afternoon that goes nowhere in particular.
Out in the city
The old town, on foot and on the water.Walking the Ribeira and the tiled churches, a six-bridges cruise, a tuk-tuk up to the cathedral.
Beyond the city
Up the river, into the hills.A full day in the Douro vineyards, the canals of Aveiro, the granite wilds of Peneda-Gerês.
Arouca 516
Walk the longest footbridge on earth.
Ninety minutes inland, the Arouca 516 hangs 175 metres above the Paiva river gorge, 516 metres of steel walkway strung between two clifftops, the longest pedestrian suspension bridge in the world. Pair it with the Paiva Walkways along the rapids below for the best day’s walking near Porto.
See all 26 Arouca 516 day trips →By place
Start in the city, then head out.
Porto for the old town and the bridges. Gaia for the port lodges. The Douro for the vineyards. Aveiro for the canals. Braga and Guimaraes for the history. Peneda-Geres for the wild north.
By activity
Pick the kind of day.
A cruise if you want the river slow. A tasting if you came for the port. A walk if you want the old town. Fado, a long lunch, the Douro by train, and the rest.
Plan it
Three perfect days in Porto.
First time here? A long weekend that hits the essentials, the old town, the river and the valley, without a wasted hour.
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