Douro Valley and Porto

We took a three hour train from Lisbon to Porto which was pretty quick and easy. We took a quick uber to our hotel, which was the Hospes Infantes Sagres. I booked it on Amex FHR which includes free breakfast, early checkin and late checkout (both of which we did not end up using), and $100 resort credit which we used at the hotel restaurant. The hotel was located pretty centrally, about a 10 minute walk to the Ribeira which is the main tourist drag on the harbor. Unlike Lisbon, the city of Porto was mainly unscathed in the 1755 earthquake that toppled most of Lisbon and thus has a lot more preserved city architecture. Porto was originally a port city, famous for shipping and storing port that was made in the Douro Valley. Now the port is driven in on trucks so I believe the river and the port are mainly used for tourism. 

We dropped off our bags at the hotel, then walked down Rua das Flores (Flower Street) which was a classic tourist street full of fun shops and restaurants. Taking a 15 minute walk down the hill led us to the Ribeira, the famous scene in Porto. 

Ribeira at night

Hospes Infantes Sagres Porto

Breakfast room at Hospes Infantes Sagres

Our hotel was located right around the street from the famous Harry Potter bookstore, Livraria Lello. You have to buy tickets and line up to enter. Every time we walked by, the line was huge so we skipped it.  We came back later at night and was able to sneak a peak inside! 

If you walk around the touristy area, you can't miss the famous Sao Bento train station (located smack dab in the middle of the city). The tilework in Portugal is always newer than you think. Most of it was installed in the 18-19th century!

Walking up the hill from the train station is Santa Catarina street, the main pedestrian shopping street in Porto. There are a bunch of Portugese stores (check out JAK for shoes), European chains, and cafes. We popped into Majestic Cafe, a famous baroque cafe, for a coffee to experience the ambience. 

For lunch, we stopped into a local diner called Gazela. It's famous but also has a good mix of locals and workers just out for their daily lunch. Get the hot dog and the Francescinha, a fried sandwich with steak, ham, covered in cheese and drenched in a tomatoey sauce. It's definitely big enough to share! 

Half of the francesinha with egg 

We had to walk off our lunch, so decided to cross the pedestrian bridge across the river for a different view in Gaia. Gaia is where all of the port wine lodges have their tasting rooms and storage cellars, so a popular activity is to bop around and do port tastings all afternoon. A bunch of the wineries offer tours with 3-4 tastings at the entry fee so we signed up for the one at Ferreira, one of the oldest port wine lodges. There's not much to the tour other than viewing the cellars and learning a bit more about the port aging process, but it was a good way to kill a rainy afternoon 

Walking around Gaia 

After the rain let up, we changed to go to dinner at Tapabento. This was one of the only dinner reservations I made in Porto after seeing it on social media. Located inside Sao Bento train station, it was packed, with people lining up 15-20 minutes before opening (us included), even though everyone had reservations. They serve Portugese tapas and overall it was pretty good, but I don't think it was anything exceptional. 

Star of the show, but the broth flavor actually wasn't amazing 

Sneaking a peak at Livrella Lello at night!

The next morning, we were picked up for our second tour of the trip, a day trip to the Douro Valley. Part of the reason I wanted to come to Portugal was for the Douro wine valley, Portugal's own wine making region. To me, it seemed more like a hilly Napa. I loved seeing pictures of the rolling green hills when planning but as luck would have it, it was pouring rain on our tour. It wasn't just our Douro Valley day but almost every day of our trip to Portugal, so we were just extremely unlikely. Even though it was raining, I could tell the Douro Valley was still extremely beautiful and so I would make the trip back (maybe September which is harvest season) to see it again! It is still also relatively underdeveloped, so it's not overcrowded with tourists yet. 

Our first winery tour stop

Sadness at the weather 

Second winery 

We shared a typical Portugese meal for lunch with our tour host and then went to our third wine tasting, which wasn't super memorable and again it was pouring rain, so we called it a night and drove back to Porto. 

The next day, it was surprise surprise, raining again, so we decided to go to the covered market in Porto and walk around. Compared to the TimeOut market in Lisbon, this one was more of a farmers market with fresh produce, seafood, teas, olive oil, etc so it was definitely worth a wander! 

I love vintage shopping so I actually got a bunch of stuff at Humana Vintage, located right around the corner from the market. Humana is a chain like Crossroads or Buffalo in the US, however they had a special "Vintage" location that had true vintage finds. I walked away with this 100% wool/cashmere blazer and also the 100% leather jacket on the hanger for about 40 euro each! 

For lunch, we were craving something a bit healthier and we discovered place called Honest Greens. We were obsessed. Think Cava or Sweetgreen in the US but way better. It's not cheap, but it is delicious and they have a bunch of appetizers like this feta dish, agua frescas, bigger locations even have coffee bars where they serve desserts and matcha. They have multiple locations all across Portugal and Spain. We ate here multiple times when we were sick of traditional Portguese food and it was always good. We even looked into US locations--maybe franchise idea?? 

Popped into a random cafe for matcha when it was pouring rain 

The next day, we had basically seen all there was to see in the Porto city center. We hit all the major touristy spots, we had taken the day trip to Douro Valley, and there were no major sights to hit up anymore. So we just started walking. Our tour guide had recommended the Crystal Gardens, about a 30-45 minute walk outside the city center so we just walked there one morning. I was delighted to discover it was a beautiful park with great views of the river, a random castle turret, and peacocks! 

I love exploring gardens but the Crystal Gardens didn't come up on any of the social media or tour book recommendations. But if you have some extra time, you can definitely spend an hour or two exploring. 

Got another random francesihna for lunch, not as good

Spent some time exploring a soap shop called Claus Porto. They have a beautiful building on the Rua das Flores. Around the corner is another perfumery called Castlebel. We picked up some soap and goodies from each store (hubby really likes scents). 

We inevitably found our way back to the Rebeira in the 30 minutes that it was sunny. Not pictured: we got caught in the pouring rain after leaving this seaside cafe. 

That night, we just ate at the hotel restaurant Scarlett to use our $100 restaurant credit. It was just typical French food, so nothing to write home about. 

Our last day, again with nothing more to do, we just walked around the city center again and crossed the river to Gaia again. 

I set our sights on this new restaurant in Gaia located on the rooftop of the Rebello Hotel called Bello. I absolutely came for the views, food wasn't anything to write home about. Weather wasn't the best so we sat inside, but we were seated behind these girls the whole time so basically the view was just watching them (they were cute though! and the girl on the right looked like my sister). 

The views were probably better on the ground level because no obstruction

Had to get my favorite gelato in Europe, Amorino! (Though I think they have an LA location too, sigh globalization). 

We had honest greens for our last meal! Too real. 

And so we started our journey back home. I was kind of dreading the journey home because to use the least points, we had to take two connections. We first had to fly Porto --> AMS --> CDG--> LAX. Despite a tight connection from AMS--> CDG, we made it! And the cherry on top was that even though we had two connections, we were seated in business for both legs so we actually got full meals (which were quite good) for each short leg of the trip. 

Best butter I ate every day 

 When we landed in CDG I even had time to get myself a little designer treat (not pictured)! And that's a wrap for Portugal. Overall, had a good time but probably wouldn't go back. We went for a total of 8 days, and I think it would have been sufficient to stop in Lisbon and Porto for a 3-4 day weekend and go to Spain for the rest of the trip. Douro Valley was beautiful though, so I would consider going back to the Douro Valley for an extended stay. Now I am counting down until our next big trip, China!