The Livraria Lello Bookstore
 

Has anyone been to the Livraria Lello Bookstore in Porto and if so, can you make a recommendation on acquiring tickets ahead of time? We find this an intriguing place to visit, but do not want to spend a lot of time waiting in line to enter. We have been told that there may be a wait even if we have purchased our tickets in advance. Is it worth it?

We tried to go. There was a huge line and we were unsuccessful buying tickets online as we stood in line, so gave it a pass. I was under the impression that everyone in line already had tickets, and yes, that would have meant quite a wait even with tickets in hand.

We have purchased our tickets for the first entrance time on a date in October (9:00 - 9:29 timed ticket)

It depends on the price of the tickets. The "ticket voucher" costs 5 euros and allows you to discount those 5 euros if you purchase a book. To enter the book shop you must at least buy this one. Or you can buy the "prioritary ticket voucher", cost is around 15 euros, and includes a book. Link to this:
https://www.livrarialello.pt/en/store/ticket-voucher

This one means you have priority on all the other waitting on the line with a 5 euros ticket.

A litlle bit confusing, I think.

Last week I was passing by, and I thought the queue was really short, so I took a pic of it:

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fod...834410c927.jpg


It is in fact a beatifull store, but that's all it is. Don't compare a bookshop many people does) with a library, a bibliotheque. A very nice young gentleman told me that he was expecting something better than the Turim Library. Well, we are talking about different things. If someone wants to see a real nice bibliotheque in Portugal, than Coimbra is the place.

Lello is a shop to buy books, a very nice one, I must say, and when I used to buy books there (now I don't, I think you all can guess why) it was mainly because they used to had books of the moment, and also because besides being a bookshop they are also editors, and the back covers of their books are (were) very appealing to me. I leave here an example:

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fod...6ad810e494.jpg

Many people go there just because of the conexion to Harry Potter. I don't know wheter Mr. Potter ruined it, or saved it. Probably, saved it.

Helena

The line when we were there looked very much like the one in Helena's photo. I wasn't aware of the Harry Potter connection at the time, just heard they had a photo worthy staircase:)

Melqn8, this is a very, really very short line, like 10 minutes waitting to get inside.

Oh, Mel, you cannot imagine (and unfortunately I lost those pics) the real line that sometimes happens! Like hundreds of people, more than one hour waitting...

I guess I'm just impatient Helena - that line looks too long to me! So much to see and do in Porto, it seems a waste of time to wait in line to see a bookstore. But that's just me.