Portugal was not on my list of must see places before we leave Europe but it was my hubby's pick for a quick getaway. Other than booking the airline tickets, lodging and a few weather searches I didn't know much about the area. I'm so glad that we went to Porto it was an amazingly beautiful city. The entire time we were there the weather was so nice and warm. I loved every minute of it and hope to be able to visit some other cities in Portugal.
Porto is the second largest city in Portugal located along the Douro river in Northern Portugal. It is internationally famous because of its port wine exports which is named after Porto.
Getting There
We flew on our favorite discount airline RyanAir from Nuremberg directly into Porto.
*Special Note: RyanAir now has assigned seating so you don't need to pay and extra fee to purchase seats and you don't need to get there extremely early and line up to get good seats. When you print out your boarding passes your seat numbers will be right on their and if you purchased the tickets together all of the seats will be together.
*Special Note: RyanAir also lets you have an extra free small carry-on bag (so now that's 2 bags you are allowed to carry-on).
Palacio da Bosa (Stock Exchange Palace)
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| Running around the Palace |
Sao Bento Train Station
Beach
Porto has a beautiful beach area--very clean, tons of nice restaurants, a great pedestrian walking area, a playground, nice grassy areas & beautiful historical statues
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| picking flowers for mommy |
High Lookout Point City View
River
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Dancing by the River |
Port Wine Caves
The city is known for its port wine and they have several port wine caves where you can have wine tasting tours and buy different port wine products.
*Special Note: if you find a brand/flavor of wine that you really like I wouldn't buy the wine from the actual port company. Just go to one of the several local markets and they sell all of the different port wine selections for about 50% less.
Our favorite was the Tawny Red Wine made by Offley. We brought a couple of bottles home with us from the trip but I will definitely be looking for this wine in the local German stores to ship back to the USA.
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| Cheers!! |
City Sights
They have very good public transportation in Porto but we used our favorite hop on/off sightseeing tour bus to explore the city. I think they have about 3/4 different hop on//off bus companies; we used the Yellow Bus Tours.
*Special Note: One day ticket is 13euro per adult/2 day tickets is 15euro--Children age 4-10 are half price
They have very good public transportation in Porto but we used our favorite hop on/off sightseeing tour bus to explore the city. I think they have about 3/4 different hop on//off bus companies; we used the Yellow Bus Tours.
*Special Note: One day ticket is 13euro per adult/2 day tickets is 15euro--Children age 4-10 are half price
Good Eats
Pastry shops are all over Porto and crowds of people are in and out of them throughout the day. I passed by the window display of a pastry shop/restaurant in the main square and everything looked so beautiful I had to stop. The best part about this shop is that they had all of the large desserts in mini sizes so I was able to taste a lot of different things. After the first visit we loved the natas (Portuguese word for pastries) so much we went back a few hours later a got a large assortment to snack on throughout the day.
My favorite was the pastel de nata; a Portuguese egg tart pastry. Those little tarts were some of the best things I have ever eaten. If it was up to me I could have spent the entire trip in the bakery and the Rorys would've had to roll me to the airport. :-)
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| yummy!! yummy!! |
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| Some of the most delicious pappardelle seafood pasta I've eaten-- great Italian restaurant with a beautiful ocean view |
Lodging
I rented an apartment off of airbnb and it was in a perfect location. Right by the river (which is why I have tons of river pictures) in the historic district. The apartment owners set up airport transportation for us. We had a very late check-in around midnight and they had someone meet us upon our arrival to give us the apartment tour and city overview. They also provided us with a bottle of port wine to enjoy during our stay.
Here is the link to the apartment: https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/327891. I highly recommend this apartment and the owners have several properties in the same amazing area.
