48 Hours in Porto
September 16, 2024
The Clérigos Tower became our own personal landmark
Bem-vindo a Porto!
Last week, Mary and I skipped out of town on a Friday red eye and landed Saturday morning in beautiful Portugal! Well, Paris in the morning, then a quick afternoon flight to Lisbon. After that, it was just an easy 3 hour train ride to Porto!
Portugal has been high on our must-see visit lately and a family wedding in Napoli gave us the perfect excuse to plan a visit. It's not hyperbole to say that I absolutely fell in love with this city after only 24 hours!
We arrived late on Saturday night (missing our first dinner reservation...RIP Gruta, we'll be back for you) and roamed the lively streets for an hour or so. We popped into Flôr for cocktails and some small yummies before falling into bed.
We stayed at the Porto A.S. 1829 hotel in the Vitória district, right in the heart of the city. If you ever find yourself in Porto, I highly recommend staying here! The hotel is located in a busy, but not rowdy, praça and is the perfect walking distance from everything a tourist would want to see in Porto. (It's also mere steps away from the place where we had our favorite meal...) I'm a sucker for a good bath and found the clawfoot tub of our room ideal for soaking tired feet after a long day climbing Porto's famous hills.
Day One
Our first full day in Porto was a busy one! We started by climbing the Clérigos Tower, a looming bell tower that has become a symbol of this beautiful city. This Baroque church was built in the 18th century and is home to one of the most breathtaking chapels.
Pro tip: We liked starting our day with the climb, to avoid the midday heat and crowds. But don't let the other early bird tourists rush you past the church itself! Once you climb the tower, you can't access the cathedral anymore, and the crowning statue of the Madonna is worth a stop. (Don't dawdle, though, because once it gets crowded at the top, it becomes much less magical.)
There are 240 steps to the top of this tower (giving me flashbacks to my Stephansdom hike a few years ago). When you don't have to navigate trying to pass people trying to descend as you ascend (or vice versa), the climb is easy! There are plenty of large windows that keep a nice breeze flowing as you climb, too.
A thick fog rolled over the city that morning, lending a slightly haunted quality to the photos we could capture at the top. And though we couldn't see as far as you typically can at the top of Clérigos, the hike was definitely worth it, if only to gain a small sense of the city we were setting out to explore.
We had tickets for the first climb of the day at 9am. Afterwards, we headed back to the hotel for breakfast because not much else is open that early! We decided to skip the nearby Livraria Lello bookstore tour, and I was quite happy with that decision after witnessing the never-ending lines that surrounded that place every day we were in Porto.
All the streets in Porto wind up & up like this
After breakfast, we headed towards the Museu da Cidade do Porto, a small + free museum where you can see dozens of the famous Portuguese painted tiles up close and browse a small exhibit about Portuguese architecture.
On the way there, we passed Igreja do Carmo, one of the most famous landmarks and tourist stops for those iconic tiles. By the time we were out, large groups of tourists were crowding the church—the exterior murals of which are currently covered in a thick sheet of plastic because of nearby subway construction anyway—so we didn't stop for a photo. We did, however, stop at a small artisanal market set up in the Praça de Carlos Alberto right outside the museum where I picked up a gorgeous brass ring and a set of purple earrings.
Our next stop was the Mercado Bom Successo — probably the furthest walk away from the center of the city we did during our time. We should've been hungrier before making the trek all the way out; there's really nothing in the mercado but yummy-smelling food stalls. We ordered two decadent lattes and people-watched for a while.
The walk to the mercado proved to be worth it, though, because we ended up passing the Jardins do Palácio de Cristal! This park boasts beautiful landscaping, yes, but it's better claim to fame (IMO) are the resident peacocks, hens, and roosters scuttling around the grounds and sparking cross-species spats. Worth a brief stroll if you're in the area.
We popped into the Museu Nacionel Soares dos Reis next, named after famed Portuguese sculptor António Manuel Soares dos Reis. Their exhibits were fascinating and we wandered around the collections of contemporary art, postmodern sculpture, and jewelry for hours.
On our way back to the hotel, we popped into a local tapas restaurant for some refreshing sangria, lobster rice, and a taste of tripas com molho de francesinha. Mary was eager to try the francesinha sauce—a famous national flavor—but wasn't terribly impressed. (We also didn't know what tripas are pre-ordering...as our waiter said when he cleared our table and noticed Mary's mostly untouched dish, "It's an acquired taste.")
We weren't planning on ordering dessert at lunch; our bellies were pretty full, even after ignoring the tripas! But as soon as the waiter mentioned the house-specialty chocolate mousse, I knew I had to try some. I was honestly blown away! When preparing for our trip, we made a list of the must-try sweets to seek out (aka the best pasteis de nata). None of the advice we found mentioned chocolate mousse! I'm here to correct that record. Pro tip: when in Portugal, order the mousse.
The beginning of the meal...
...and the delicious end! (feat. the brass ring I found at the market)
We had dinner at Ostras & Coisas. Being a pescatarian, I was in foodie heaven in Portugal! Oysters, clams, scallops, cod, John Dory, sea bream, and octopus, oh my! We couldn't have picked a better place for our first official dinner in Portugal. We started with a tray of oysters then munched our way through stuffed crab, seafood rice, and crème brûlée.
I love the pace of meals in Europe. In the States, we would've chowed our way through this four-course meal in the space of ~90 minutes or so. In Porto, this table was ours for over 2.5 hours! It was a respite after a long day of movement. We eventually ambled our way home accompanied by the lovely sound of the street performers.
Day Two
We set out to explore a different half of the city on Monday, joining a free walking tour organized by Porto Walkers. Sergio was our guide and he was absolutely incredible! I'm not a big fan of doing organized tourist-y activities like guided tours, but the historic introduction, facts, and knowledge of the city we gained greatly enriched our experience.
With the tour, we walked our way through the São Bento train station, home to some of the most beautiful tile murals in the city, down Rua de Santa Catarina, over to the Luis I bridge, outside the Sé Cathedral, and through the Barredo neighborhood—the oldest part of the city.
While exploring the medieval quarter of Porto, Sergio brought us to a local bakery that offered pots of chocolate mousse and thick slices of chocolate cake—an ideal pick-me-up at 11am! My second serving of chocolate mousse in 24 hours did not disappoint.
The view of the Dom LuÃs I bridge and the beautiful city of Porto from Vila Nova de Gaia
We crossed the iconic ironwork bridge to Vila Nova de Gaia, the best way to take in the full view of Porto. We also had a port wine tasting scheduled at the Cálem Porto cellar. The Cálem cellar offered a wonderful introduction to the history, cultural significance, and tasting notes of port wine.
Much to my mother's chagrin, I am still not a huge wine fan. But I did enjoy learning the differences between tawny, ruby, and white port wine and the specifications I should look for when searching for a bottle of authentic port wine. Of course, I also enjoyed discovering which of the various wine varieties were my personal favorites. If you're not a wine person, port wine is probably not going to be your new beverage of choice, but it was an amusing and knowledgeable introduction to a variety of wine I had never encountered before!
We walked back across Dom LuÃs I and climbed the hill back towards Rua de Santa Catarina—one of the premiere shopping destinations in Porto. We made a beeline for the Mercado do Bolhão, an indoor farmer's market replete with fruit, vegetable, spice, seafood, coffee, chocolate, and cheese stalls. (If you're short on time, I'd choose the Bolhão market over the Bom Successo one.)
Our Porto Walkers guide, Sergio, had mentioned the market earlier, and we thought it'd be the perfect place to stop for lunch after our wine tasting. Imagine our delight when we discovered Sergio on his second or third tour of the day, slipping behind the tinned fish counter to host a tasting with his group! Not wanting to bother him, we grabbed a fresh fruit smoothie and picked up some of the freshest sashimi I've ever tasted.
Pro tip: If you want to make like the locals do, pick up a glass of wine upon arriving in the market and stroll through the aisles sipping. Portugal is very open-alcohol friendly, a refreshing change from the rather draconian ordinances of the States.
We browsed the market for a while longer, stopping to grab a sweet potato onigiri and a small coffee, before heading back to the hotel. We were so beat by the time our dinner reservation came around that we considered skipping it! Luckily for us, we decided to go ahead.
Our favorite meal in Portugal
Cozinha das Flores is a small restaurant merely steps from our hotel (a happy accident—I had no idea when I made the reservation that it was so close to where we were staying) that played host to our final dinner in Porto.
I love when a chef has a great deal of fun at work and the joy of Chef Nuno Mendes practically radiates out of every aspect at Cozinha das Flores. A sister of Flôr, the delectable cocktail bar we fell into on our first (late) night in the city, Mary and I had no idea what we were in for when we sat down. Chef Mendes' creations incorporate traditional Northern Portuguese flavors and cooking traditions along with innovative ideas, and I was eager to experience the blend of old with new before heading south to Lisbon.
Not only was Mary's drink infused with unique flavors, it was served in a shallow bowl!
The cocktail menu is extensive here, which is a real treat, especially in Europe. As someone for whom cocktails > wine and beer, I'm spoiled in the States with restaurants and bars that heavily cater to my tastes. Generally speaking, cocktails are not as common in Europe. (It was also the case that we drank more wine than water throughout the entirety of our stay on the continent, but I digress...) Mary was more adventurous than I was, ordering a drink infused with goat cheese, and only settling for that because the chicken-infused cocktail was not available! I ordered a delightfully fizzy (and un-infused) gin concoction.
Dinner was a whole 'nother delight onto itself. We started with the spider crab donuts, a juxtaposition of flavors that somehow just worked. When I tell you I could've eaten half a dozen of them by myself, it's not an exaggeration. The light, fluffy, sugary donut is balanced with the rich, warm crab mousse in what would undoubtedly be a standout bestseller at any Brooklyn brunchery. Even the bread and butter was a standout hit here—no, really! Their homemade butter is served in a deep dish in a delicious bath of salted buttermilk.
If you're ever in Porto, you absolutely must try Cozinha das Flores!
