Day trips from Porto

Porto has two ways out: upstream into the Douro valley, and north into the towns where Portugal began. The first is a full day and the finest, the second are half days and go by train for very little.

The Douro valley — a full day and the best trip

The train from Campanhã to Pinhão takes about two hours and costs €12.35, and the last fifty kilometres run right beside the water, below terraces cut into schist. The valley was demarcated in 1756 by order of the Marquis of Pombal — the third legally regulated wine region in the world, after Chianti (1716) and Tokaj (1730) — and the Alto Douro has been UNESCO-listed since 2001. At Pinhão you get off, have lunch by the river and visit one quinta; the estates take visitors, but the small ones want a call ahead. Back on the same train in the evening.

Boat or train

Boats from Porto run upstream to Régua and back for €76 per person, a full day; the usual combination is boat up and train back, or the reverse. The train is cheaper and faster, the boat slower and shows you what the line does not. If you pick one — the train both ways is the best value, and you sit on the right-hand side going up.

2 daysIf you do not yet have a plan for the city itself:Porto in 2 days →

Guimarães and Braga — the north

Guimarães is where the Portuguese state was born in 1128, and the wall says so: Aqui nasceu Portugal. The old town is UNESCO-listed, takes three hours, and is an hour by train from Porto. Braga is half an hour further and has Bom Jesus do Monte — a baroque stairway of 577 steps climbing in zigzags, with a water-powered funicular from 1882 for those who would rather not walk. The two combine into one long day.

Aveiro — canals and stripes

Forty minutes by train, in the opposite direction from the Douro. A painted moliceiro boat poles through the canals in the centre — once built for cutting seaweed, now only for visitors. Ten minutes further, in Costa Nova, the beach houses are painted in stripes — once so fishermen could spot their own house from the sea, now a reason to go the extra ten minutes. Half a day covers both.

How long each takes

Guimarães and Braga combine — the Douro combines with nothing

FoodWhat to eat before you go and after you get back:What to eat in Porto →

The same line carries on south. Lisbon sits at the far end of it and does not fit into a day out; it wants a base of its own and its own days, so most people take it as the second stop on the same trip.

GuideThe city at the far end of the line:Lisbon →

Who should skip them

• The Douro in July and August. The valley is narrow, stony and hot; the September harvest and October are better.
• Aveiro as „the Portuguese Venice“. There are three canals, the boats are pretty, and half a day is enough — expecting more does not pay.
• The boat both ways. Two full days on the water for the same valley; the train one way gives you half a day back.