Day 17: Sightseeing in Porto

1.8.2025

Today's Highlights:

• Porto:
• Mercado do Bolhão
• McDonalds Imperial
• São Bento Station
• Sandeman Porto
• Livraria Lello

This morning we indulge in a bit more sleep than last night. We head to breakfast around 8:30, which is included in our hotel booking.

The breakfast buffet is varied, with different types of bread, croissants, jam, honey, chocolate spread, cold cuts (cheese/meat), eggs, cornflakes, bacon, fruit, etc.

We fill up. To drink, there are juices, milk, 2 coffee machines, and tea.

After breakfast, we start walking. There is supposed to be a heatwave coming in the next 2 days (we already felt it yesterday at +37 degrees...), so we decided to stay in Porto today and spend the next two days driving outside Porto, hoping to escape the city's heat...

How wonderfully that will NOT work out, I will write later 🥵😅

Today we walk directly from the hotel towards the tourist center. Passing numerous tiled houses, through narrow alleys and steep streets down.

The first stop is the artistically tiled church Capella das Almas de Santa Catarina.

Next, we walk to the market hall Mercado do Bolhão. There are so many great things here, unfortunately, everything is incredibly expensive. I would have liked to try a yellow pitaya, but a yellow pitaya for 6€.... no, that will probably only happen again when we are in Thailand 🤪

Here, there are colorful and vibrant sardine cans in all variations, chili bottles, spices, vegetables, fruits, and also butcher and cheese stalls on the sides.

We continue walking through the city, and with each step, it feels like the temperature rises by half a degree... 🥵

We pass by various shops, busy streets, narrow alleys, construction sites, traffic chaos... it really has everything!

Next stop: the most beautiful McDonalds in the world!

Yes, no joke! The most beautiful branch of this well-known fast-food chain is located here in Porto - supposedly. We have to check it out, and we can say: it’s true!

Welcome to McDonalds Imperial (and no - we didn't order anything).

Wow - not bad. This is really a McDonalds with a 'special' interior design.

The next highlight comes right after:

the (reportedly) most beautiful train station in the world is also located in Porto!

Well, we want to check that out too.

Welcome to São Bento Station - Wow!

We must admit here: definitely one of the most beautiful train stations we have seen so far! Worth seeing!

We walk back a bit and then continue through narrow alleys, passing construction sites, up a narrow street towards a church. Everywhere we find souvenir shops, especially with the topic of football being highly popular and we also see a life-sized, brightly lit Cristiano Ronaldo.

I stop at a store where carnival music is playing, a Ferris wheel is spinning with colorful objects inside, and the walls are festooned with colorful ... yes, what actually?... dotted.

I am curious and look into the store. The many colorful cans are: sardine cans!!! It is the store O Mundo Fantástico das Sardinhas Portuguesas, where everything revolves around the sardine.

We continue walking to Igreja dos Clérigos, but we forego climbing the bell tower (10€ per person, and it’s too hot today).

At the square behind, the tour vehicles (vintage cars) start their sightseeing tours that we saw yesterday. There is a wide range of tour vehicles, from mopeds to Tuk Tuk-like vehicles offering tours. However, we choose to continue walking, passing small alleys to Miradouro da Vitória, where there’s a view of the Douro and the bridge.

On the way down to the river, we pass another market hall Mercado Ferreira Borges that is used as a market hall during the day and transforms into a nightclub in the evening. Funny!

On our way to the Douro River and the promenade, we walk through some small alleys and see another McDonalds branch by the river. They really chose nice locations and buildings in Porto.

Arriving at the promenade Cais da Ribeira, we walk along the Douro to the bridge Ponte Luis I. It’s noon now, and we have long passed the 30-degree mark. We are quite exhausted and want to cross the bridge to the other side to find a restaurant.

On the way to the bridge, we pass market stalls selling souvenirs, highlighted here are (as already seen in Funchal) handbags and wallets made of cork, and of course, painted tiles.

Restaurants on the other side are well-frequented, everything is packed. At Restaurant Sabores d'Fininha, we actually snag one of the coveted spots and eat potatoes, soup, salad, and my husband treats himself to the local specialty Francesinha.

After lunch, we want to visit one of the many port wine producers. Since we already know the producer Sandeman from our Andalusia vacation (we did a sherry tour in Jerez de la Frontera back then), we try our luck here. The lady at the reception offers us a 1-hour SANDEMAN PORT WINE AND CHOCOLATE EXPERIENCE, a tour with port wine and chocolate tasting, in one hour. All other tours are full or too late for us, so we say yes and book this for 30€/person. Since our son cannot drink (17 years old), he can 'watch' for free...

We stroll through a few streets, stop by the 'Half Rabbit,' and meet a very special turtle at the shore.

By chance, I see the house Casa Portuguesa Pastel Bacalhau. Here, everything revolves around cod. I don’t quite understand this house: bar, food counter, port wine tasting, huge wall of books, and on the balcony a pipe organ with live music and singing. It’s very beautiful to look at so we just stay for a while in the house and listen to the live music.

The Burger King branch looks very modest a little further down. It has clearly lost out to McDonald’s... here the location is 'nice' only.

Back at Sandeman, we start our port wine tour. Our group has a manageable size of 10 people. A couple, 2 women, 2 men, and us. We are warmly welcomed by a young lady who guides us through the warehouses and vaults of Sandeman. Truly exciting, we get to see everything, have time for photos, and she answers our questions. After a concluding information video in the small Sandeman-owned 'cinema' in the cellar vault, where you learn about the origins of Sandeman Port wine and its cultivation, we move to the tasting room for the port wine tasting.

We actually find the film helpful, as it encourages us to drive along the Douro into the hinterland to the port wine-growing regions that look very scenic.

We sit at the table with the two men, who turn out to be very funny tasting buddies. They come from New York and Mexico City and are currently making a Europe tour together, excited about the variety of Europe.

After 3 glasses of port wine, our table is by far the funniest one and we are the ones who stay the longest and chat. However, since we have tickets for 18:30, we have to leave gradually. Anyway, that was very pleasant - and aside from that, a really informative tour and for the price of 30€ really okay. We can recommend it!

We stroll back towards the bridge at +36 degrees now.

My son and I have already announced that we will not walk up the many steps on the other side that lead back up to the hill into the city... too hot! My husband doesn’t really want to stand in line for the elevator and then in the stuffy elevator with so many people, but he concedes.

Before we take the elevator, we must walk back over the Ponte Luis I bridge. Right at the beginning of the bridge, we see a few young men climbing around on the bridge scaffolding. Are they crazy????

We look down casually 10 m to the river, and the guys climb even further up the bridge façade????

At first, we think they are just seeking attention, but then one after the other actually jumps into the river!!! They're insane!!!

Seems like this is the local youth's sport, to jump from the bridge into the Douro. On the other side of the bridge, a handful of young men is also getting ready to jump from the bridge...😱😱😱

We stand in line for a while at the elevator, the ticket costs 4€ per person, which can be obtained from the machine. After about 10 minutes, we are allowed to squish into the Funicular dos Guindais and go up.

We walk through some streets that we have already known since this morning towards our next 'highlight', the 'most beautiful bookstore in the world'. So many superlatives in Porto!

It’s a bit strange that you have to buy an online ticket to visit the bookstore LIVRARIA LELLO. This costs 10€, which can be deducted from the purchase of a book (unfortunately, we found that out too late).

When we arrive at 18:10, we have a ticket for 18:30, we already see several lines forming. We neatly line up by 'time' for 18:30. Isn’t that crazy... for a bookstore...

J.K. Rowling lived in Porto while working as an English teacher (in the early 1990s) and was supposedly a regular visitor to Livraria Lello. It is generally believed that the bookstore served as one of the main inspirations for the Hogwarts settings in the Harry Potter books, particularly for the moving staircases and the magical atmosphere of the school library. Reportedly, she has denied this (Wikipedia). Nevertheless, the bookstore attracts many Harry Potter fans, and the Harry Potter saga dominates the bookstore - we find the book series in several languages.

Well, with or without Harry Potter, yes - the bookstore is definitely beautiful to look at. My son picks up an English novel, which ends up costing us only 15€ instead of 25€, since I can convert the entrance ticket into a 10€ voucher. Unfortunately, only 10€ per person and per book. Hm, had I known that, I would have also looked for a book... but I probably would have overpaid since we didn’t see any books under 10/15€ at first glance. Never mind - we were here! It fits.

After visiting the bookstore, we walk past the university, take a selfie at the fountain with the PORTO letters, and take the subway from São Bento over the bridge to Jardim do Morro. Since we are quite exhausted from walking and the heat, we forgo searching for a restaurant and have dinner again at the Pizzeria Gallo Grigio from yesterday. Again very delicious!

We actually want to take a look at the sunset from the hill today, but it’s sooooo crowded... and somehow, we also don’t feel like waiting another half hour, so we slowly walk back to the station and take the subway back to the hotel - with sunset out the window!

So much seen today! Conclusion: Porto is definitely worth a trip! We have never had it on our radar.... good thing we chose this stopover 🤩

For the statistics:

Walked: 14 km

Overnight stay: 3*** Tryp Porto Centro (B&B)

Weather: Sunny, up to +36 degrees