Things to Do in Porto

The ordinary Porto week is built around the river, the sea and eating. A morning bica; the Bolhao market or a neighborhood mercearia; a nine-euro lunch heavier than Lisbon’s; a walk along the Douro or the Matosinhos seafront; a beer on an esplanada when it is not raining and indoors when it is, which is often.

Markets

Mercado do Bolhao reopened in 2022 after a long restoration — smaller and more polished than the original, but still with real fishmongers, butchers and produce sellers alongside the tourist stalls. Mercado de Matosinhos is the better working market. Mercado Bom Sucesso on Boavista is a food hall. And Feira de Vandoma, the Saturday morning flea market on Alameda das Fontainhas, is Porto’s answer to the Feira da Ladra and considerably less discovered.

Beaches within thirty minutes

Matosinhos by metro — surf schools, lifeguarded, cold. Leca da Palmeira with the Siza tidal pools. Praia do Homem do Leme in Foz. And southward in Gaia, Canidelo, Miramar with its chapel on a rock, and Francelos. The Atlantic here is genuinely cold: roughly 13 to 14 C in February and 18 to 19 in September. Wetsuits are normal in August.

Day trips within an hour

Braga and Guimaraes, both by train and both a real day out — Guimaraes is the founding city of Portugal. Aveiro and Costa Nova. Amarante. The lower Douro valley to Regua by train through the vineyards, which is the one to do first. Vila do Conde and Povoa de Varzim up the coast. Peneda-Geres National Park is about ninety minutes by car.

Places a resident would know

• Casa Guedes on Praca dos Poveiros for the pernil sandwich with Serra cheese — the original hole-in-the-wall, not the expanded Rotunda branch.
• Adega Sao Nicolau and Taberna Santo Antonio for the unreconstructed version of Porto cooking.
• Cafe Progresso on Rua Actor Joao Guedes, claimed as the oldest cafe in the city.
• Aduela in Cedofeita — a tiled former hardware shop, now the neighborhood’s default bar, with tables spilling into the street.
• Maus Habitos on Rua Passos Manuel — a fourth-floor arts space, gallery, restaurant and club above a car park, running since 2001.
• Hot Five Jazz & Blues Club near Palacio das Artes, and Passos Manuel underneath the Coliseu, for live music.
• Casa da Musica — Rem Koolhaas’s building on Boavista does far more than classical: a serious jazz, contemporary and world program, and a public rooftop.
• Jardins do Palacio de Cristal — terraced gardens with peacocks and the best free view of the Douro mouth. The adjacent Biblioteca Almeida Garrett has a quiet reading room.
• Serralves — the Siza-designed contemporary art museum, its Art Deco villa, 18 hectares of park and the Treetop Walk.
• Livraria Lello is the famous one and now charges admission; residents use Livraria Latina or the second-hand shops on Rua da Fabrica.
• Capela das Almas at Santa Catarina and the Igreja do Carmo azulejo facade — walked past daily by residents, photographed hourly by everyone else.

Sport

FC Porto at the Estadio do Dragao dominates the civic calendar to a degree Lisbon’s clubs do not, because there is one club rather than two. Boavista FC is the second. Surfing at Matosinhos and Espinho year round. The Porto Marathon runs in November along the coast.

The year

When	What
February/March	Fantasporto, the fantasy and science-fiction film festival at the Teatro Rivoli, running since 1981 and one of the longest-established genre festivals in Europe
May	Queima das Fitas, the university’s week-long graduation festival — the Serenata Monumental on the steps of the Se and a parade of decorated floats. Enormous, alcoholic, and it takes over the city
May/June	Serralves em Festa — roughly 50 continuous hours of free performance, music, dance and installation across the museum, house and park. Described as the largest contemporary arts festival in Portugal
June	NOS Primavera Sound at the Parque da Cidade, the Porto edition of the Barcelona festival and the best-programmed music event in northern Portugal
23–24 June	Sao Joao. The defining event of the Porto year and wilder on the ground than Lisbon’s Santo Antonio. Grilled sardines and caldo verde on every street, plastic hammers and garlic flowers, hot-air balloons over the river, midnight fireworks from the Ponte Luis I, and an all-night walk to Foz for the sunrise and breakfast at Matosinhos. The 24th is a municipal holiday and nothing works. Not stage-managed for tourists
July/August	Mares Vivas in Gaia; Vodafone Paredes de Coura in mid-August, ninety minutes north, one of Portugal’s best-loved indie festivals
September	The Douro vindima — harvest. Many quintas take paying visitors, and this is the best month of the Porto year
October/November	Porto/Post/Doc documentary festival; the Porto Marathon
December	Christmas market on Avenida dos Aliados, the Aliados light installation, fireworks over Ribeira