Porto Port Tasting
Taylors Port Cellar, Porto May 2024
Introduction
Porto is in north west Portugal and is currently served by EasyJet from Glasgow to Francisco Sá Carneiro Airport (OPO), which is just 8 miles north of Porto. For us, this makes it an easy and inexpensive few days (apart from all the port tasting that is!)
There are dozens of well known port producers in Porto, but we chose to visit Cockburns and Taylors.
Essential sights to check-off on your visit
1. Mercado do Bolhão
2. Sao Bento Station
3. Luís I Bridge
4. A port cellar or two
Day 1
Its dead easy to get from Francisco Sá Carneiro Airport into Porto. The purple line on the Port Metro takes you into town. Depending on your stop, it should only cost €2-€3 per person.
Our accommodation was Jardim da Batalha in a good central location, north of the river. The staff were lovely, and very accommodating. The first thing they did was offer us a glass of port while they checked us in! We had a double room with a garden view which was spotlessly clean. Breakfast was also exceptional, with buffet items constantly being refreshed.
Once checked in, we went off in search of the Mercado do Bolhão.
The Mercado do Bolhão - Porto's historic market didn't disappoint. It's open from 8am - 7pm on Monday to Friday, and 8am - 6pm on Saturdays. You can buy wine by the glass and are free to wander around the market with it! Loads of fruit, cheese, nuts, oils etc on sale.
Mercado do Bolhão
São Bento Railway Station
After lunch at a micro brewery, where my wife had a pint and I had a glass of wine (I'd had quite a bit of wine that day!), we went to find São Bento Station.
The walls of concourse of São Bento Station are covered with 20,000 azulejo tiles, mostly depicting scenes from Portuguese history in blue and white. It's pretty stunning. The concourse is mix of tourists admiring the architecture and locals trying to go about their business, probably not really taking in the beauty of the building anymore. The temperature is cool, which also makes it a good place to duck into from the heat and the roadworks outside.
Day 2
Today we made full use of Hop-on-hop-off bus tickets from City Sightseeing and boarded the bus near the river, close to the imposing Luís I Bridge. We took the blue line across the river where you are taken south into Porto's old town. There are quite a few of Porto's wine and port cellars in this area, but we'll be back tomorrow for those!
Once we had completed the bus loop, we boarded the red line at the same bus stop, and headed out to the coast as far as Foz.
Foz is an upmarket beachfront district of Porto, at the mouth of the River Douro where it meets the Atlantic Ocean. We walked along Foz's promenade and then along the bank of the river, all the way back in to Porto. The three mile walk was easy enough in the warm sunshine with old fashioned slow moving trams passing us on one side, and boats zipping up and down the river on the other.
Luis I Bridge
Day 3
The main event! We had booked two port tasting tours today. One in the morning and one in the afternoon. We decided to burn off our calories in advance and walk the 1.5 miles from our hotel to the old town across the Luis I Bridge. The lower deck of the bridge is for buses and bikes, and the upper deck is for pedestrians and trams.
Porto is so very hilly! If you are at the lower level, down by the bank of the river at the Ribeira, there is a funicular that you can take to bring you up to where the upper deck of the bridge is. You get the most rewarding views of the River Douro and of Porto if you walk across the bridge.
Porto, and the River Douro, from the Luis I Bridge
The first port cellar we visited was Taylors. We pre-book a Self-guided tour & port wine tasting for €25 each. The tour takes in an array of exhibits and photographs that depict history of Taylors Port wine and its production, as well as being able to walk through the port cellar.
At the end of the tour, you get the chance to sample three ports included in the ticket price. You can also buy other ports by the glass (which we did).
Taylors Port Cellar
In the afternoon, we made the 10 minute walk from Taylers to Cockburns Port Lodge. This was another pre-booked tour, but you just need to make a reservation online, and pay on arrival. The Classic Tasting is €26 per person, which includes a guided tour of the lodge, and 3 ports to taste in the main tasting room.
Cockburns Port Lodge
Cockburns Port Tasting
On the way back, pretty merry on port, we went to Mercado Beira-Rio, which is an indoor market almost opposite the lower cable car station. There are lots of stalls, and eating options. We scoffed some pizza and ice cream before catching a cable car back up to the level of the top deck of the Luis I bridge and walking back to our hotel in the fading daylight.
We didn't buy any bottles of port in either port cellar. We hoped we would see a good range of port in duty free at the airport. Then of course it doesn't count towards your luggage weight!
