1. Admire all the blue tiles of Igreja de Santa Ildefonso.
The church was completed in 1739 but the tiles were not added until until 1932 by Italian artist, Nicolau Nassoni.
2. Shop and eat at the Mercado do Bolhão.
They sell fresh produce, seafood, meats, cheese, and specialty food items, in case you’re looking for a special souvenir to take home.
3. Get a 360 view of Porto at the the Torre dos Clérigos.
All that’s standing between you and the view is 240 steps. It’s also a church, and its most recognizable aspect is its bell tower.
4. Take a stroll by the water and watch all the boats go by.
5. Enjoy breakfast and coffee at a confeitaria.
It’s a bakery where you can get sweets/pastries, and a lot of them also sell sandwiches. A lot of the confeitarias have a card system where they tally everything up on card (like a credit card), and at the end, you bring your card to the cashier to calculate your total bill. It’s also inexpensive and quick, so this is where we ate breakfast almost every morning. You can skip the hotel breakfasts.
6. See over 20,000 ceramic tiles at São Bento Station, which is still an active train station.
7. Check out one of the city’s oldest monuments, the Porto Cathedral.
8. Take a tram through the city.
Tram 1 will take you through down the water, and it’s a fun ride. It costs just €3.50 each way (as of December 2023).
9. Go for a port wine tasting.
Port wine is a sweet wine from the Douro Valley of Northern Portugal. We did a tour, which was a bit of a trek from Porto so if you’re pressed for time, I would skip it since you really spend most of your time on the bus. Instead, look for a winery (they have plenty in the city) and just do a tasting there.
10. Cruise on the Douro River.
There are various spots you can take it from. You can even take one right in Porto if you want to see the city sights. The river is 556 miles long. The one we took was included in the port wine tour and was near the winery in Douro we went to. There wasn’t much to see except some vineyards far away.
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