Explore Porto

The Igreja da Trindade is a large 19th-century church at the top of Avenida dos Aliados, behind Porto City Hall. Designed by Carlos Amarante, it was begun in 1803, opened for worship in 1841 and given its façade and bell tower in 1846. The Order of the Trinity shows its collections in the adjoining rooms, and visitors can climb the bell tower to the church terraces.

Neonia is an immersive museum on Rua de Ceuta in central Porto, with 20 rooms over 1,500 square metres on two floors. The rooms are named after places and traditions of the city, such as the Bolhão Market, Café Imperial and the Crystal Palace Gardens, and use murals, mirrors, lasers, plasma balls and multimedia to recast Porto as a parallel city.

The Capela das Almas is a chapel on Rua de Santa Catarina, Porto's main shopping street, rebuilt in the late 18th century and enlarged in 1801. In 1929 its outer walls were covered with 15,947 blue and white azulejo tiles by Eduardo Leite, made by the Viúva Lamego factory in Lisbon, showing the lives of Saint Francis of Assisi and Saint Catherine.

Café Majestic is a café on Rua de Santa Catarina in Porto, opened in 1922 and designed by the architect José Pinto de Oliveira in the Art Nouveau style. Its carved façade and the room of mirrors and wood panelling behind it were restored after decades of decline, and the café reopened in 1994.

Livraria Lello is a bookshop on Rua das Carmelitas in Porto, opened in 1906 in a neo-Gothic building designed by the engineer Francisco Xavier Esteves for the brothers José and António Lello. Inside, a forked red staircase rises to the upper floor beneath a stained-glass skylight; entry is by timed ticket, which doubles as a voucher for a book.

São Bento Station is a railway terminus in Porto's historic centre, built from 1904 to plans by architect José Marques da Silva on the site of a Benedictine convent. Its entrance hall is lined with about 20,000 azulejo tiles painted by Jorge Colaço between 1905 and 1916, showing episodes of Portuguese history and scenes of rural life.

The Church of Saint Ildefonso stands above Praça da Batalha in Porto; built from 1709 on the site of a medieval chapel, it was blessed in 1739. Its twin-towered granite façade carries about 11,000 azulejo tiles by Jorge Colaço from 1932, and inside are a retable by Nicolau Nasoni and a small museum of sacred art.

The Clérigos Tower is the 75-metre baroque bell tower of the Clérigos Church in Porto, designed by the Italian-born architect Nicolau Nasoni and built between 1754 and 1763. Visitors climb about 240 steps to a gallery overlooking the old town and the Douro, and the ticket also covers the church and a museum on the Clérigos brotherhood and on Nasoni.

The Misericórdia of Porto Museum, opened in 2015, occupies the Rua das Flores building that was the seat of the city's Santa Casa da Misericórdia charity from the 16th century until 2013. Its collection includes the Flemish panel Fons Vitae, and the visit takes in the church, with a baroque façade by Nicolau Nasoni, and an iron-and-glass gallery of 1890.

Porto Cathedral, the Sé, stands on a hilltop in the historic centre and is one of the city's oldest buildings. Begun in the 12th century as a fortress-like Romanesque church with a rose window, it was remodelled in the Baroque period, when Nicolau Nasoni added the side loggia. The visit includes the Gothic cloister lined with 18th-century azulejo panels.

The Igreja de Santa Clara is the church of a former convent of Poor Clares in Porto, begun in 1416 next to the Fernandine Walls and completed in 1457. Behind its Renaissance portal, the interior is covered in gilded and polychrome Baroque woodwork; the church has been a national monument since 1910.

The Soares dos Reis National Museum was founded in 1833 as the Museu Portuense and is Portugal's first national art museum. Since 1942 it has occupied the neoclassical Carrancas Palace of the late 18th century, and its collection of Portuguese painting, sculpture, furniture, ceramics and metalwork includes works by the sculptor António Soares dos Reis, after whom it is named.

The Palácio da Bolsa is the neoclassical seat of Porto's Commercial Association, built from 1842 on the site of the burnt cloisters of the São Francisco convent to plans by Joaquim da Costa Lima Júnior. Guided tours lead through the glass-domed Courtyard of Nations, the Noble Staircase, the Tribunal Room and the Arab Room; the interiors were completed in 1910.

Ribeira is the riverside quarter of Porto's old town, on the north bank of the Douro below the cathedral hill and part of the UNESCO-listed historic centre. Its arcaded Praça da Ribeira was rebuilt after a fire in 1491, and tall, narrow houses line the Cais da Ribeira quay facing the port lodges of Vila Nova de Gaia.

The Church of São Francisco is a Gothic church in Porto's historic centre, built by the Franciscans from 1383 to about 1425 beside today's Palácio da Bolsa. Its plain stone nave contrasts with the gilded Baroque woodwork covering walls, pillars and chapels, including a Tree of Jesse altarpiece; the visit continues to the Third Order church, a museum and catacombs.

World of Discoveries is an interactive exhibition on the Portuguese voyages of discovery between 1415 and 1543, set in former Real Companhia Velha warehouses in Miragaia near the Douro. Opened in 2014, it has life-size sets, navigation instruments and maps, and a boat ride along a water channel past scenes of Africa, India, Brazil, China and Japan.

The Dom Luís I Bridge is a double-deck iron arch bridge over the Douro between Porto and Vila Nova de Gaia, designed by Théophile Seyrig and built by the Belgian Société de Willebroek. Its 172-metre arch opened in 1886; the upper deck now carries Metro line D and pedestrians, and the lower deck links the Ribeira quay with the Gaia waterfront.

Burmester Cellars stand on the Gaia riverbank next to the lower deck of the Luís I Bridge. The Port house traces its origins to Burmester, Nash & Co., founded in 1750 by Henry Burmester and John Nash. Guided or self-guided visits lead through an old warehouse of casks and a cellar of vintage port and end with a tasting.

Cálem Port Cellars are the lodge of the Port house Cálem on the Gaia riverside, across the Douro from Porto's Ribeira. The firm was founded in 1859 by António Alves Cálem. The tour leads through an interactive museum on port wine and the Douro valley and through cellars of large vats and casks, and ends with a tasting; some sessions add a fado show.

The Monastery of Serra do Pilar is a former Augustinian monastery on a hill in Vila Nova de Gaia, facing Porto across the Douro beside the Dom Luís I Bridge. Begun in 1538, it has a circular church inaugurated in 1672 and a round cloister of the same diameter; part of the site has been a military barracks since 1947.