City Review: Porto, Portugal

I visited Porto, Portugal, for the first time in January 2019, and it ended up being one of the most magical weekends of my life. When I was living in Madrid, a friend from the U.S. was planning to come visit for a week, and we were going to spend a girls weekend in Porto, exploring and drinking port wine. However, she ended up getting sick and not being able to travel. Unbeknownst to me, another visitor was on his way — Matt, my former friend/co-worker/summer fling and present-day fiancé. 😉 After he surprised me at the airport, we spent a whirlwind weekend in Porto and it felt like something straight out of a movie.

After we got engaged this summer, and knowing we were heading back to Europe to apply for our digital nomad visas in Spain, I knew I wanted to go back to Porto and take our engagement photos there. Plus, it was a great opportunity to spend an entire week there instead of just a few days. I feel like we really got to know the city better! So here’s my city review of Porto, Portugal.

About Porto

Porto, also known as Oporto, is Portugal’s second-largest city after its capital, Lisbon. Located in the northern part of the country, the Porto metropolitan area straddles the Douro River and reaches the Atlantic coast to the West. The historic center of Porto received designated UNESCO World Heritage Site status for being one of the oldest in Europe.

One of Porto’s claims to fame is its main export: port wine, which is named after the city. It’s hard to get far in Porto without coming across one of Porto’s many port wine cellars, especially on the south side of the Douro in Vila Nova de Gaia — which is technically its own city, but still very much a part of the Porto metropolitan area.

Porto is popular with tourists from elsewhere in Europe and all around the world. While the main language spoken is Portuguese, most people in the tourism industry speak English, and restaurant menus are often available in English, French, and sometimes German as well. If you don’t speak Portuguese, you can try Spanish! Many Portuguese speakers have a good understanding of Spanish.

How Many Days Do You Need in Porto?

Porto isn’t a massive city, but it’s bigger than it looks. Also, the city streets are quite steep and hilly, so if you’re walking everywhere, it may take you longer to get places than you were expecting. I would say you need at least two days, if not three, to fully experience Porto.

Two days would definitely be pushing it. And Porto is one of those cities in Southern Europe where you feel like the pace of life is a bit slower, so I don’t think you’d want to rush through everything. Relax and enjoy the port wine along the way!

Things to Do in Porto

One of Porto’s most iconic sites is the Dom Luís I Bridge over the Douro, which connects Porto to Vila Nova de Gaia. Not only is the bridge itself super impressive, with its double-decker metal arch design, but it gives you one of the absolute best views of the city. When we were there, I wanted to walk across the bridge almost every single day because the views are sooo beautiful! Between the colorful cityscape and the busy river below, you absolutely can’t miss the Dom Luís bridge.

Once you’ve crossed the bridge, be sure to spend some time in Vila Nova de Gaia, the city’s port wine hub. You’ll find famed port wine cellars such as Sandeman, Cálem, and Porto Cruz. Porto Cruz in particular has a gorgeous rooftop terrace where you can sip on your favorite port wine and enjoy the view — we went up to the top but unfortunately it was completely full, but you may have better luck, especially if you visit in the off-season. Besides the port wine cellars, you can wander along the Vila Nova de Gaia riverfront and enjoy watching the boats sail by.

Porto is also home to a bunch of beautiful parks that you’ll want to check out. The first time we visited, we went to Parque de Serralves, which is full of interesting architecture — including the Casa de Serralves, a flamingo-pink Art-Deco style villa that takes you back to the 1930s when it was built. Parque de Serralves is also home to the Serralves Museum, which is the city’s contemporary art museum.

Additionally, don’t miss the Jardins do Palácio de Cristal (Crystal Palace Gardens), a premier place to watch the sunset. We also came across families of chickens and peacocks on our way to the lookout point! And speaking of sunset, in Vila Nova de Gaia, Jardim do Morro is small but always packed with families and friends staking out their places for hours before the sun disappears over the horizon.

No matter where you are in Porto, you won’t be able to miss its famous azulejos, or tiles, that adorn the vast majority of the city’s buildings. That’s another reason you’ll probably want three days in Porto… I promise you’re going to be so distracted taking pictures of the gorgeous tiles that it will take you way longer to do everything. 😂 Here were some of my favorites:

While Porto is plenty charming on its own, if you have more than just a few days, it can be fun to get out of the city proper and visit a fishing village for the day! We went to both Matosinhos, to the north, and Afurada, to the south. Matosinhos was easy and cheap to access with public transportation, and it’s home to one of the Porto area’s most popular beaches, Praia de Matosinhos.

Afurada, while closer to central Porto, is likely best accessed via private transportation (like a taxi or Uber) but is so charming and full of gorgeous azulejos. Be sure to bring your appetites! Fresh catches of the day are roasting on grills right outside every restaurant.

And speaking of food… you cannot visit Porto without eating some traditional Portuguese foods! Specifically, a Francesinha — which is similar to a grilled cheese sandwich with meat, and smothered in a tomato-based gravy. (Definitely oversimplifying it here for my fellow Americans, lol). And for dessert, don’t miss out on a pastel de nata. These delicious egg-custard tarts have crisp, flaky crusts and are traditionally sprinkled with cinnamon.

Find more things to do in Porto.

How Expensive is Porto?

Compared to much of Europe, Porto is a fairly inexpensive city. Prices in stores were similar to in Spain, but I was able to buy some things in Porto for much cheaper than I’d buy in the U.S. — for example, Olaplex No. 3 (which I use on my hair) is normally about $35 including tax. But in Porto, at Primor, I was able to buy it for only about €20!

Also, we took quite a few Ubers when we were there. Like we needed to get across the river for our engagement photos and didn’t want to spend 30 minutes walking in the hot sun, or when we wanted to visit Afurada and there was no direct transportation available. Most of our rides were only about €4-€7, even for a 20-minute ride.

We went out for brunch a lot in Porto, and I’d say most menu items were about €6-10 euros per person. And this would typically get you a pretty decent sized breakfast item, like an omelet or pancakes. With the U.S. dollar not far off from the euro at this moment, that’s really not bad! For lunch or dinner at a typical Portuguese cafeteria, you could also expect to pay about €7-10.

A cappuccino or latte was usually about €2-€3, and a Super Bock beer, the official beer of Porto, cost about €2

When going out to eat, don’t forget — tax is included and you don’t have to tip!

Where We Ate

Porto is definitely a great food city! (And when food is so cheap, that only makes it better.) Keep in mind that not every restaurant in Porto takes credit cards, so if you’re paying for things exclusively by credit card, like we do, check to make sure they take cards before sitting down.

Here are a few places I’d recommend for visitors to Porto — all of which take credit cards.

Mercado do Bolhão: First up, this isn’t necessarily a traditional restaurant, but it’s a market in central Porto that has meat, seafood, produce, spices, and more. But you can also find little restaurants around the inside perimeter of the building, and if you come around 4-5 p.m. you’re sure to find family and friends gathering on the market steps after work enjoying snacks and drinks. We tried a “Porto tonic,” Porto’s take on a gin & tonic, and we also tried sea urchins for the first time!

Mercado do Bolhão
R. Formosa 322
4000-248 Porto, Portugal

Esquires Coffee: We went here for breakfast/brunch multiple times during our trip because it was easy to get a big breakfast that would fill us up and give us the energy we needed to explore Porto! The menus are in both English and Portuguese, and you won’t have any trouble communicating in English. Esquires Coffee is popular with both travelers and locals, and there’s even Wi-Fi if you need to sit and work for a bit — but it would be best to do it outside the very busy brunch hours so you aren’t holding up a table from people waiting to eat.

Esquires Coffee
Rua de 31 de Janeiro 215
4000-543 Porto, Portugal

Murça no Porto: If you’re looking for a super authentic, no-frills Portuguese dinner, Murça no Porto is the place for you. A little family-run cafeteria, they offer a daily menu and the elderly owner of the restaurant will probably be your waiter. A mixture of Spanish and English got us by. And not only is the food delicious, but you get soooo much of it… and it’s SO CHEAP! They have a daily set menu, so we each ordered soup, a fish entrée with sides, and dessert, which also came with bread and a drink — so we each ordered red wine. And instead of a glass of wine, we got an entire liter to share! The desserts were giant slices of delicious cake.

The grand total for our meal was €20. I’m serious. Tax included, no tip necessary. And I was full for like 24 hours. 😂

Murça No Porto
Rua da Alegria 44
4000-041 Porto, Portugal

Casa Moreira: When we went to Afurada, we just had to have fresh seafood. While almost every restaurant was serving up the catches of the day, we did a bit of research to find the absolute best place we could. And that’s how we found Casa Moreira. It was lunchtime, so it was crowded and we had to wait a little bit before we could be seated, but it was absolutely worth it. We split a sea bass and a sea bream, as well as potatoes and a bottle of wine. Again, I didn’t need to eat for the rest of the day.

Casa Moreira
Praceta São Pedro 41
4400-584 São Pedro da Afurada, Portugal

Where We Stayed

Throughout much of our trip, we stayed in hotels that we booked using a combination of points and money, thanks to our Chase Sapphire Preferred credit cards. But we were going to be in Porto for quite a while — 8 days — and we wanted to be able to do laundry, so we booked a private home to stay in.

The place was right in the middle of Rua Santa Catarina, the main pedestrian shopping street, so the location couldn’t have been more perfect! I definitely recommend staying in that area on your next visit to Porto.

Final Thoughts

While I’d been to Porto before, I was so excited to get to spend a full week exploring this time! It was also pretty cool to get off the beaten path a bit with visits to nearby villages Afurada and Matosinhos, so I feel like I’m getting to know the area a bit better. But I know there’s still so much to see in Porto itself, and I can’t wait until we return — I think my parents would love it, and it would be awesome to bring them sometime. Porto will always be so special to me!

 

What do you think? Are you planning to visit Porto, or have you been there before? Let me know in the comments!

-Cathy

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