Built on a series of hills, like its larger sister Lisbon, sits the historic city of Porto with the Douro River winding through the city dividing the populated right bank of Porto from the opposite Vila Nova De Gaia. Porto is home to some of the world’s largest port wine cellars. If you haven’t tasted port before, sampling some in Portugal is a must. This fortified sweet wine is often served with dessert and is typically described as rich, leathery, and fruity in taste. Graham’s Port Lodge offers a wonderful tour where you can sample three different port wines on a terrace overlooking the river, while Taylor’s Port Lodge is a larger facility with a self-guided audio tour.
Everything you want to see in beautiful Porto is within walking distance of most hotels. I recommend staying at Torel Palace, a five-star boutique hotel housed in an 1861 building that was once a literary-inspired retreat for some of Portugal’s illustrious writers and poets. From there, a ten-minute walk will find you standing in awe of the São Bento Railway Station where its lobby walls are completely covered in magnificent blue tiles, called azulejos. Close by is the famous Lello Bookstore where there is always a long line to see inside the gothic style space that was the inspiration for Hogwarts Library in Harry Potter. Another iconic site to behold is Igreja Capela das Almas (Chapel of Souls) with its exterior blue & white tiles depicting scenes from the various lives of saints.
Porto is also a serious destination for foodies with numerous pastry shops and cafes at every turn. You can also find ten Michelin-starred restaurants in Porto as well as the Mercado do Bolhão food market, a culinary paradise in the city center where merchants set up elaborate displays selling meats, fish, cheese, and fresh flowers. There are also several restaurants inside the market.
From Porto, we headed into the Douro River Valley. The Douro Valley is the oldest demarcated wine region in the world and a UNESCO World Heritage site with miles and miles of terraced sun-drenched vineyards lining dramatic hillsides along the river. It is truly a breathtaking scene. We had a private driver who took us through romantic two-lane villages dotted with medieval stone houses, but as we got further into the valley it became more harrowing at times as our van took hairpin turns around huge granite bluffs on one side of the narrow road and incredibly steep terraced vineyards cascading downward with no guardrails. If you do not want to drive, you can take a train from Porto and arrive at the small postcard-perfect town of Pinhão where whitewashed quintas (wine estates) are all built up on the mountainsides.
We stopped to tour Quinta de la Rosa and enjoyed trying their award-winning ports and wines in their ultra-modern tasting room. Another good stop is at Quinta do Bomfim, one of the oldest port houses in the world dating back to the 1800’s.
We opted to stay the night at the Vintage House Hotel in Pinhão, a gorgeous riverside haven surrounded by terraced hillsides. If we had known how wonderful the resort is, we would have planned for a longer stay and look forward to coming back. Pinhão, although a very small town, serves as a good base for exploring the many surrounding vineyards. I have experienced the wine regions in California’s Napa Valley, Spain’s Ribera del Duero, and the rolling hills of Tuscany, but the Portuguese wine region is truly one of my favorites with unmatched beauty and very reasonably priced wines.
On our last morning in Pinhão, we walked down to the hotel’s dock and boarded a sailboat for a lovely cruise with the Ânima Durius boat owner, Paulo, and his dog Lua. It was a highlight of our trip and a perfect way to spend our final day. As we sailed past terraced vineyards, orchards, and whitewashed villages we relaxed on the boat enjoying some of the region’s famous ports. We talked about all the things we had seen and done over the past week and reminded ourselves why we love Portugal, vowing to return as soon as possible.
