Porto Experience

  Vintage Character

Advantages: Full of interest, pleasantly unpretentious, reasonably priced
Disadvantages: Perhaps a little downbeat, even dour

...more than realistic. Porto isn’t, and couldn’t pretend to be, in the very top rank of Europe’s cities for art, architecture, history or grandeur. But it has its share of all of these and other merits too: it is scenically located; it is easy to reach and to get around; it is a good jumping-off point from which to visit other attractive places in the region; and it is reasonably – by Eurozone standards, cheaply – priced for staying, eating and drinking. ...
...‘bigger’ clubs from bigger cities, Porto has the capacity to exceed the visitor’s expectations. In many ways it is an ideal short-break destination, and it deserves to be better known. * Location and history * Characteristically, Porto is what it says on the label – a port – and has been one since Roman times. It sits on the northern bank of the mouth of the Douro River, where the hills behind the waterfront make it defensible on the landward side. ...

torr 15.05.2009 · Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: exceptional
Review of Porto (Portugal)

"Calem" Port the taste of Porto

Advantages: Port lovers paradise
Disadvantages: Too many to try for one visit.

...well earned sample of the Calem port. Wonderful! All around you are bottles of the stuff, and prices are varied. A normal bottle can cost 8 Euro, but there are bottles there for 160 Euro plus, (see the photo added). This was a wonderful way to spent an hour or so on a Sunday morning, the group we where with where nice and chatty, our guide was very knowledgeable and the drink at the end well worth the tour. Do go and enjoy. ...

bostonianbeer 11.03.2009 · Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of Calem Port Wharf, Porto, Portugal

Porto Always In My Heart...go there and be happy.

Advantages: Beautiful City, Excellent Night Life
Disadvantages: Can't Find Any

...it's enough to know that Porto is a Beautiful city with the Douro River (you can make a trip by ferry departing from Ribeira to Spain) as a great landscape and of course the tasteful Port (you can visit the Porto caves where this wine is made). If you're looking for fun, I suggest going to Ribeira and Foz where you can find great bars and discos. In the summer you have several beaches to go (not far from Porto, 4/5 miles away), among them Miramar ...
...as well, and again great fun at night(better go to Francelos for fun 1 or 2 miles away from Miramar) If you like to shop and good restaurants, either you can go to Boavista (the expensive area of Porto, where you can find the best 5*** hotels as well), or you can go to Cedofeita (the less expensive area).In Cedofeita there is several monuments really beautiful and very old, among them the famous Clerigos tower (the view from there is great). You ...

Lemos 27.09.2005 · Read full review
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Review of Porto (Portugal)

Oporto - Capital of Culture 2001

Advantages: A perfect City break
Disadvantages: Few

...of the Douro. The name Porto means port in Portuguese – the harbour kind, not the wine -, so no guessing what it’s major industry was! When the country was still a duchy of the kingdom of Leon, it was named for it’s major town, PortoCale, since Lisbon was still in the hands of the Moors. When King Afonso Henriques secured independence the country took it’s name from the same root – which must really annoy the Lisbonites ...
...‘Lisbon plays, Braga prays and Porto works’, so the northerners look down on the ‘soft southerners’ from the capital – it cuts both ways. Oporto is at the hub of Portugal's northern industrial region and its wealth is obvious, with a palacial Stock Exchange, the Clerigos tower built in the C18th by an Italian architect; Sao Bento railway station with 20,000 hand-painted tiles of historical scenes decorating the walls ...

Andy_W 30.03.2001 · Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of Porto (Portugal)