Ricardo_215

A friend invited us to visit him at his home near Porto (Oporto in Portuguese). Despite being Portugal's second city, I couldn't find much about it on Fodor's Forums. I'm sure my wife & I will enjoy 4 or 5 days there in early May but if any of you have any tips I'd love to hear them. I have an old guidebook to "Europe on a shoestring" with 2 pages on Porto - prices are in escudos so that will tell you how old it is!

So what's interesting there, did anyone do the rail trip up the river valley & (of course) try the port-tasting? Thanks

kellyee21

My partner goes to Porto every couple months for work and I was able to meet him there for 4 or 5 days one time last year. I don't have any other place to compare it to in Portugal, but I really enjoyed it. It is fairly small but there is quite a bit to do. We didn't do any days trips and I found enough to do to keep me very busy in the city.

I really liked the Palace, Market Bolhao, the Library Lello, Ribeira, the short hour river trip and of course the Porto Houses. I think that would be great to visit with someone who lives there. Have fun !

Byrd

We (a group of 4 couples, all old friends) spent five nights in Porto last October, before moving to Lisbon for another five days.

We loved Porto. There is much to explore in the city, and we took day trips to Coimbra and up into the Duoro Valley.

We enjoyed touring one of the wine lodges after walking across the river on the high HIGH! bridge--not for the faint of heart!

I suggest you get a new guidebook. We have the new Fodor's See It Portugal, which we really found useful--lots of information as well as plenty of color pictures.

I know you will enjoy Porto.

Byrd

Pvoyageuse

Spent 5 days in Porto in 2008, most of them under pouring rain.
You may be interested to read my trip report dated Jan.22, 2008.

K2DangerGirl

Yes! My husband is a huge Port afficionado and we have visited Porto a couple of times. (I also posted a Porto/Douro Valley trip report, probably in 2007.) It is a charming, old-world city, and walking along the riverfront (esp. on the Vila Nova da Gaia side) on a sunny weekend is amazing. The Port lodge tours and tastings are very informative. Sandeman is a good place to start, and the Ramos Pinto lodge has a spectactular collection of antiques. (Be sure to wait for a tour in English to get the full benefit.) If you want to splash out on a meal, walk up the hill to the Taylor lodge and eat in the restaurant there--on the patio if it is warm enough.

The Hop-On, Hop-Off bus tour is 10 Euros (when I was last there in 2008) and IMO is the best HOHO deal in Western Europe. The tickets also allow you to ride the city buses, which is great if you are down near the water and want to get UPHILL to see the train station or the shopping streets near there. We rode two of the loops without ever getting off, just listening to the tour information. (The downside is that the buses don't run every 10 minutes like in larger cities, so be sure you don't miss your next bus if you get off in, say, Foz!)

If you find (or already know) that you like Port, I recommend Vinologia, just one block up from the Ribeira on the Porto side. The owner is very knowledgeable, and they have many different Ports that you can taste in flights or as one-offs. The Port Institute runs a tasting room in the Jardins do Palacio de Cristal, also a wide selection of Ports in a spectacular garden setting. For wine, on the Rua da Fonte Taurina (almost an alley parallel to the river, one block up) is a small wine shop that represents independent quintas and wineries. Lots of opportunities to try wines and ports you would have a very hard time finding outside Portugal.

Byrd

There is a nice little article about Porto in the April National Geographic Traveler. It has several suggestions of thihgs to do.

http://blogs.nationalgeographic.com/...-portugal.html

Ricardo_215

Great, I knew I could count on you. Thanks for all the suggestions. How do I find Pvoyageuse's trip report from Jan 22 2008? When I click on Pvoyageuse it shows 3 more recent trip reports & lots of topics commented on. Are old trip reports hiding somewhere in Fodors? Is there some easy way that I have missed?

Sher

Hi Ricardo. Under the top three listed you will see highlighted: see al Pvoyageuse's topics. All of the topics that were posted by him(her?) will come up on a new page.

saige

We love Porto! There are river cruises along the Douro and lots of bars and restaurants along the waterfront. Absolutely plan to do a tour and port tasting at least once. We scheduled a private tour at Grahams through our local wine merchant and it was great. Their web addresses are grahams-port.com and [email protected]

Coimbra, if you have a chance, is well worth the trip!

Have you used the search function at the top of this page? Just type in your search terms in the box where it says Search the Forums.

Have a wonderful time in Portugal!

Michael

Click on my name and you will find my trip report which began in Porto.

thursdaysd

Besides the suggestions above, I'd add a day trip to Braga. My favorite of the port caves was Taylor's: "only Taylors has an elegant rose garden with white fluffy Japanese hens and a peacock, and Taylor's LBV, rich and robust, was my clear favorite among the ports I tried." I think you can eat there, too.

bilboburgler

The railway station is very lovely
The section between the railway station and the river is a dump but very safe.
Tube/tram good
do not try the green soup
do try the local dish frecnh man. Its made of 5 types of pig in tomato ketchup with added cheese. Now it sounds bad but..
Porto tastings are a bit of touristy nonsense but worth eating down on the river bank just for position
river cruise fun and walking over the bridge gives you great views

thursdaysd

"Porto tastings are a bit of touristy nonsense" - I'll put up with the nonsense every time in exchange for free port! You can also buy tastes of better ports at very reasonable rates. Smaller outfits are likely to be less crowded.

Micheline

We are also going to Porto so finding this thread very useful. Since the new format I find the search function to be not nearly as good as before. I'm getting a lot more information just from this.

Ricardo_215

I found the trip report. Thanks. I'm even getting some Portuguese lessons from a friend here, and discovering that my French will help me. But bilboburgler I will definitely avoid the French man (?) But what's wrong with green soup?

bilboburgler

think cornflour, salt and hint of finely shreaded green bean and not in a nice way

bilboburgler

still macdonalds does it in the main square

K2DangerGirl

French probably will help, although I made DangerHusband (try) to learn Portuguese for fear that it would mess up my French.

And speaking of, something else to try in Porto is the regional sandwich called a Francesinha. It means "little French girl" and is loosely based on the croque monsieur. It's a heart attack on a plate, with beef, sausage, ham, more sausage, cheese broiled on top and all covered with a sauce unique to the dish. Yummy. The one at the Majestic cafe is supposed to be good.