Rebecca Engel
Most trips to Portugal start in Lisbon, and plenty of them end there too. Porto sits less than three hours north by train, and it’s smaller, cheaper and easier to walk. It tumbles down a steep hillside to the Douro River, and it’s the home of port wine.
None of that is a knock on Lisbon, which deserves every day you give it. It’s just that the best things to do in Porto Portugal are things Lisbon can’t give you, from cellars full of aging port to a day in the vineyards upriver. Here are seventeen of them, and together they make a strong case for moving that extra day north.
1. Walk Across The Top Deck Of The Dom Luís I Bridge
The Dom Luís I Bridge is the iron arch in every photo of Porto, and the best way to see it is to walk across the top of it. The upper deck is shared by people on foot and the metro, so you stroll along a wide path while trains glide past a few feet away.
It opened in 1886 and was designed by Théophile Seyrig, who used to be Gustave Eiffel’s business partner. Stand in the middle and you get the Ribeira stacked up the hill on one side, the port lodges of Vila Nova de Gaia on the other, and the river a long way down.
Start on the Porto side near the cathedral and walk over to Jardim do Morro in Gaia. It costs nothing, and it’s easily one of the best free things to do in Porto.
2. Taste Port In The Cellars Of Vila Nova De Gaia
Port wine is grown upriver in the Douro Valley, but it has long been aged across the water from Porto in Vila Nova de Gaia, where the cooler, damper air suits the slow wait in the barrel. The big houses still line the riverfront with their names spelled out on the rooftops.
Most of them run cellar tours that finish with a tasting. Taylor’s has an audio guided visit with three ports for about 25 euros and doesn’t need booking, Sandeman starts a little lower, and Cockburn’s only takes visitors who book ahead. Expect to pay somewhere between 20 and 35 euros almost anywhere.
Pick one tour rather than three. After that, it’s more fun to sit on the waterfront with a glass of tawny and watch the boats go by. Lisbon’s bars will happily pour you port, but this is where it actually rests in the barrel.
3. Get Lost In The Lanes Of The Ribeira
The Ribeira is the old riverside neighborhood at the bottom of the city, and it’s part of the historic center that UNESCO listed back in 1996. The waterfront, Cais da Ribeira, is the postcard view, with tall colorful houses, laundry hanging off balconies and cafe tables along the river.
The better part is behind it. Steep lanes and stone staircases climb away from the water, and plenty of them are barely wide enough for two people to pass. Wander uphill with no plan and you’ll keep stumbling onto tiny squares, tiled doorways and views back over the rooftops.
Go early in the morning before the tour groups arrive, or in the evening when the restaurants fill up and the light turns gold on the river. Wear shoes with some grip, because the cobbles get slick.
4. Take A Rabelo Boat Under Porto’s Six Bridges
Rabelo boats are the wooden cargo boats that once carried barrels of port down the Douro from the vineyards to the cellars in Gaia. The dams built upriver ended those runs decades ago, but the boats still bob along the waterfront, and a few companies use rabelo style boats for short cruises.
The classic one is the six bridges cruise. It lasts about 50 minutes, leaves every half hour, and costs around 18 euros from the Gaia side or 20 from the Ribeira. You glide under all six bridges between Porto and Gaia, including the Dom Luís I from below.
It’s a relaxed way to see the city from the water, and a good fit for the middle of the day when the lanes are hot and crowded.
5. Follow The Tiles From São Bento Station To Capela Das Almas
Porto is covered in azulejos, the painted blue and white tiles Portugal is known for, and two of the best displays are a short walk apart. Start at São Bento Station, where around 20,000 tiles by Jorge Colaço fill the entrance hall with scenes from Portuguese history.
They went up between 1905 and 1916, and it’s still a working station, so you can wander in for free. From there, head up to Rua de Santa Catarina and find the Capela das Almas.
The whole outside of that little chapel was covered in tiles in 1929, showing scenes from the lives of Saint Francis and Saint Catherine, and it’s one of the most photographed walls in the city. It’s free to step inside when it’s open.
Lisbon has a whole museum of tiles, but Porto puts its best ones out on the street where you run into them. Keep an eye out for the Igreja do Carmo too, near Livraria Lello, which has an entire side wall of them.
6. Climb The Clérigos Tower
The Clérigos Tower is the tall baroque bell tower poking up above everything else on the Porto skyline. Nicolau Nasoni designed it in the 1700s, and it stands about 75 meters tall, which is close to 250 feet.
Getting to the top means 240 steps up a narrow spiral staircase, and the last stretch gets tight when people are coming down. The payoff is a full circle view of red roofs, the river and the bridge.
A day ticket runs about 10 euros and includes the church and a small museum. At Easter, in summer and around Christmas, the tower also opens late in the evening for about 5 euros, and that’s the time to go if your dates line up.
7. Line Up Early For Livraria Lello
Livraria Lello is a bookshop more than a century old with a carved wooden ceiling, a stained glass skylight and a curving red staircase in the middle of the room. It’s one of the prettiest shops you’ll ever walk into, and almost everyone who visits Porto wants to see it.
It’s often called the bookshop that inspired Harry Potter, but J.K. Rowling said in 2020 that she never even knew it existed. Nobody inside seems to mind.
Everyone needs a timed ticket, even to buy a book. The basic one costs about 10 euros and comes off the price of any book you buy, so it works like a voucher. It opens at nine in the morning, and the first hour is by far the calmest, since the line down the street gets long by midday.
8. Eat A Francesinha At Café Santiago
The francesinha is Porto’s own sandwich, and calling it a sandwich undersells it. Bread gets layered with ham, sausage and steak, covered in melted cheese, drowned in a hot sauce made with beer and tomato, and usually topped with a fried egg and served with fries.
Café Santiago on Rua Passos Manuel has been making them since 1959 and is still one of the classic spots in the city. Expect a wait at busy times, and note that it’s closed on Sundays. If the line is too long, Bufete Fase and Cufra are two other local favorites.
Plan on sharing one, or plan on skipping dinner. It’s rich, it’s messy, and it’s a Porto thing through and through.
9. Graze Your Way Through Mercado Do Bolhão
Mercado do Bolhão is Porto’s grand old market hall, and it reopened in 2022 after years of renovation. The building looks sharp again without losing the feel of a working market, with stalls piled with fresh produce, flowers and local food.
The best way to do it is to graze. Pick up some fruit and a pastry, grab a few things to take home, then find one of the small restaurants inside for a simple lunch.
The market opens at eight in the morning Monday through Saturday and is closed on Sundays. Mornings are when the stalls are busiest and the most fun to walk through.
10. Ride Tram 1 Out To Foz Do Douro
Porto still runs a few of its old wooden trams, and line 1 is the prettiest ride. It starts at Infante near the Ribeira and follows the river all the way out to Passeio Alegre in Foz do Douro, where the river meets the Atlantic. The trip takes about 40 minutes.
Tickets are bought on board and cost about 6 euros one way, so think of it as a scenic ride rather than cheap transport. It’s also a lot calmer than squeezing onto Lisbon’s famous tram 28.
Foz is where locals come for a sea breeze. Walk the promenade to the little Felgueiras lighthouse on its jetty, where waves crash over the wall on rough days, then grab a drink at one of the beach bars before heading back.
11. Catch Sunset At Jardim Do Morro
Jardim do Morro is a sloping garden at the Gaia end of the Dom Luís I Bridge, and in the evening it fills with people sitting on the grass facing the city. As the sun goes down, the whole of Porto turns gold across the river and then slowly lights up.
Bring a drink, get there half an hour before sunset, and claim a patch of lawn. It’s one of the simplest things to do in Porto and one of the ones people remember most.
Afterward, walk back across the top of the bridge in the dusk, or take the Gaia cable car down to the riverfront for about 7 euros one way. The metro stop right beside the garden is also called Jardim do Morro, so getting here is easy.
12. Wander The Palácio De Cristal Gardens
The Jardins do Palácio de Cristal are a hilltop park just west of the center, and they’re free. The original glass palace from 1865 is long gone, replaced by the domed pavilion that hosts concerts and events now, but the gardens around it are the real reason to come.
Paths wind through shady trees and small themed gardens out to terraces with some of the best river views in Porto. Peacocks wander the lawns and perch on the walls, completely unbothered by anyone.
It’s a good spot to slow down between the busier sights. The gardens open at eight in the morning and close at nine at night from April to September, or seven in the colder months.
13. Step Inside The Gilded Igreja De São Francisco
From the outside, Igreja de São Francisco looks like a fairly plain Gothic church near the river. Inside, almost every surface is covered in carved and gilded wood, so much of it that the whole church seems to glow.
The ticket costs about 9 euros and also gets you into the catacombs underneath, where people were buried beneath the floor for centuries, along with a small museum of religious art.
It sits right next to the Palácio da Bolsa, so it’s easy to see both in the same morning.
14. See The Arab Room At Palácio Da Bolsa
The Palácio da Bolsa was built for Porto’s merchants in the 1800s, and it was meant to impress the traders and bankers who came to do business. Every room seems to be trying to outdo the one before it.
It all builds to the Arab Room, a hall of gold and color inspired by the Alhambra in Granada. It’s the kind of room that makes a whole tour group go quiet when the doors open.
You can only visit on a guided tour, which lasts about 30 minutes and costs around 14 euros. Tours do sell out, so book online a day or two ahead.
15. Spend An Afternoon At Serralves
Serralves brings together a contemporary art museum, a pink art deco villa and a huge park on the west side of the city. The museum building was designed by Álvaro Siza, one of Portugal’s most celebrated architects, and it’s worth seeing even if modern art isn’t really your thing.
The park is the part most people end up loving. There are formal gardens, a lake, woodland and a treetop walk that lifts you up into the branches on a raised wooden path.
A ticket to everything is about 24 euros, or about 15 euros for just the park and the treetop walk. It’s open every day, Mondays included, and it’s very easy to lose a whole afternoon here.
16. Eat Grilled Fish In Matosinhos
Matosinhos is the fishing town just north of Porto, and its restaurant street, Rua Heróis de França, is lined with charcoal grills set up right on the sidewalk. The smell of grilling fish finds you before you’ve even picked a table.
Take the blue metro line A to Matosinhos Sul, which takes around half an hour from the center. Walk the length of the street, look at what’s on the grills, and pick the place that’s busiest with locals.
Order whatever came in that day with boiled potatoes, a salad and a cold bottle of vinho verde. In June and July, around the São João festival, the sardines are at their very best.
17. Take A Day Trip To The Douro Valley
The Douro Valley is where port wine starts, a deep river valley lined with steep terraced vineyards that climb all the way up the hills. It’s one of the most beautiful landscapes in Portugal, and it’s close enough to Porto to see in a day.
The easiest way to do it on your own is the train from São Bento Station. It follows the river for much of the route and takes about two hours to Régua or around two and a quarter hours to Pinhão, for roughly 12 to 13 euros each way, with no booking needed.
Guided tours with tastings and lunch usually run somewhere between 90 and 160 euros. Harvest season goes from mid September into early October, when the valley is at its liveliest. It’s a long day either way, but it’s the one that makes an extra day in Porto an easy call.
More Things To Do In Porto Portugal
A few more that didn’t quite earn a numbered spot but are easy to fit in if you have the time.
The Sé, Porto’s cathedral, sits on the highest point of the old town with a big terrace out front looking over the rooftops. It’s right by the start of the walk across the Dom Luís I Bridge, so it pairs well with number one.
Majestic Café on Rua de Santa Catarina is a grand old coffeehouse full of mirrors and carved wood. The coffee costs more than it would down the street, but you’re paying for the room.
Casa da Música is Rem Koolhaas’s angular concert hall, and any show there makes a great night out. And if the weather turns, World of Wine in Gaia packs several museums and restaurants into a set of old port warehouses.
How To Fit Porto Into A Lisbon Trip
Getting between the two cities is easy. The fastest Alfa Pendular trains take about two hours and 45 minutes from Lisbon’s Santa Apolónia Station, a little less from Oriente, and the slower Intercidades trains take about three hours and 20 minutes.
Standard fares run roughly 28 to 36 euros one way in second class, and booking early can bring that down to around 10. Trains arrive at Campanhã Station, and your ticket covers the short local train on to São Bento in the middle of town.
Two nights in Porto covers the city itself. Three lets you add the Douro Valley without rushing, and if that means one less night in Lisbon, the city will still be there next time.
If you’re still planning the Lisbon half, these tourist mistakes to avoid in Lisbon are worth a read, and a day in Sintra is an easy trip from the capital. Heading south afterward? Here are the best things to do in the Algarve.
Around Porto, pick up a reusable Andante card for 60 cents and load it with single trips or a 24 hour tour pass. Most of this list is walkable, but the metro and buses make Matosinhos, Serralves and the climb back uphill a lot easier.
Final Thoughts
Lisbon gets most of the attention on a trip to Portugal, and it earns it. Porto just asks for less and gives back a lot per day, with a walkable center, port in the cellars where it ages, and some of the best food in the country.
The best things to do in Porto Portugal aren’t spread out or expensive. Walk the bridge, get lost in the Ribeira, sit at Jardim do Morro for sunset, and give the Douro Valley a day if you can.
If you’ve been going back and forth on that extra night in Lisbon, move it north. It’s hard to find anyone who wishes they’d done it the other way around.
