Porto must dos please

[Houseplantmad]

You were great with tips for Budapest, now I'm off to Porto for four days. Please share your must do things to do so I can get planning!

Book your tickets in advance for the Livraria Lello en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Livraria_Lello - my biggest regret is showing up and not realising the queues were mental. It's just a bookshop I thought. Ha!

Hire bikes by the beach - there is a big park you can cycle around.

Thanks@FKATondelayo which beach area do you mean? The bookshop looks amazing! Thanks for the ticket tip.

Thank-you from a lurker too. That looks amazing.

Muu restaurant. Unless you're a vegetarian.

I had to go back and look at this on the map!

You can get a tram from town (takes about 20m) and it goes along the beachfront north of the river from Praia das Pastoras up to Parque da Cidade. Nice if busy beaches with seafront restaurants. You can hire bikes from a shop on the boardwalk opposite Sea Life which is near the park. Lots of cycle lanes around the sea front and in the park.

In the same area there is a tiny museum about the war in Angola on the gun turrets on the sea wall. Which my kids loved because of all the weaponry.

A day trip by train along the beautiful Duoro valley past all the famous port vineyards. You can stop of for vineyard tours and get a boat or go the whole way by train.

Thanks all @FKATondelayo will definitely do that and @AnnieMay55 I am drooling at the thought of this! Any more welcome!

This is fun:

www.gaiacablecar.com/Teleferico/UK.html

cable car across the Douro river

I suggest you research & book your restaurants.
We were there 2 weeks ago, and couldn't get into the restos we wanted. They were full of locals - how very dare they !
We did eat very well though.
We'd been before as part of a Douro cruise, so skipped the tastings & the river cruise - although I'd recommend both.

"This is fun:
www.gaiacablecar.com/Teleferico/UK.html
cable car across the Douro river"

It doesn't cross the river, it stays in Gaia, but it is a good trip.

Zenith does great food and cocktails

The one I took went over the river by the bridge- is this the same one?

or am I mistaken

@Georgyporky of course you’re right… beside the river and really lovely :)

Some great ideas here, thanks all. @Georgyporky good to know re the restaurants. Where would you recommend? We love locals style restaurants. Found a fab one in Lisbon full of locals which was so fun and so reasonably priced!

I'm always a bit reluctant to recommend places - all chefs can have an off-day.
However, Fish Fish on the waterfront was mainly locals. DH had sardines, & they were filleted !!! Can't remember what I had, but it was good.

Cozinha Cabral is also mostly locals & we had good meals there.

Both places were about 60 euros in total - including a bottle of wine.

Thanks @Georgyporky they sound great.

Tripadvisor found us some superb places in Viera do Minho, have a look and then ask locally, but usually it’s reliable

Things we did that we enjoyed:

• Cable car - at the top there are lovely gardens, and great views across Porto, recommend going there to watch the sunset, lots of people take picnic blankets for the gardens, sometimes there's live music


• There's an art district or art street, that was nice for a potter around on a rainy afternoon (if you like little art shops and other shops)


• Took a number 1 tram to its final stop - porto-north-portugal.com/porto-guide/linha-1-line-tram-porto-to-foz.html - for a nice walk, quiet beaches, and a couple of good beach cafes with very lovely sea views


• Dragged the younger teen around a few port tasting houses on a rainy afternoon, he was happy to keep drinking coke, and we all enjoyed the walk around the port district and past the market stalls by the river


• Walked to the book shop mentioned above, there are lots of nice shops in that area to potter around and if you keep going uphill from the book shop there's a pretty square (think it's by the university but not sure)

Definitely also recommend Muu and Zenith. We were gutted we went to Muu on our first night which made all the other restaurants look terrible in comparison! It really was a whole experience.
Do Notre cafe was also fab for brunch.

Take shoes you can walk in. The funicular was broken when we went a few weeks back and as we stayed down by the river the hills absolutely killed me.

Uber is very cheap so if you’re like me and like to wear heels to dinner I recommend it due to the hills. Most journeys were a couple of euros max. Also you might want to research bars for post dinner drinks. We didn’t and wandering the streets at night trying to find somewhere wasn’t great. You will be offered cocaine by big groups of men on street corners multiple times a day.

Also really recommend Graham’s port tasting. We did the tour followed by the tasting. It’s a bit of a walk up the hill but well worth it and the views are lovely.

The World of Wine also had a lovely roof top restaurant which we stumbled upon by chance where they did a fairly reasonable brunch and cocktails.

Thanks all - some great recommendations here. It looks like we'll be there during the heatwave too! Can't wait to go.