As I continue to catch up on the large number of things I did in Portugal from, now, *several*…read moremonths ago... this is the one review I have left that is probably the least likely to have changed in a few months, of a building whose main attraction is the beauty of the building itself, beauty that was all constructed... not recently. Though I did also appreciate the tour, mainly in the history of the building, a building honoring not a king or a royal line like the other glamorous historical building we stopped at earlier in the trip, the royal palace in Madrid, but the history of commerce itself in the country, and the continued independence of a small nation surrounded by Spain on several sides, mostly on the power of their *money*. Money, which of course, they also used to construct this impressive building, that *reminds* you of a building a historical king would construct to honor his own family with stolen riches, but in this case, the riches seem to have been earned more... legally, at least. It is still also used at least sometimes for its original purpose (impressing foreign businessmen, i.e. business meetings), but obviously now mostly for our purposes it's a spot on all the tourists' list of half-hour tours. Definitely worth a stop if you're never been - though it is too bad tickets sell out somewhat in advance, in that I bought 2 tickets to this weeks earlier, not counting on my wife to be feeling rather sick that day and unable to join a tour. I don't think tours are unreasonably priced, given it's a unique, historical, and quite impressive building, but it was definitely not worth it at the effective twice the cost it ended up being when my wife couldn't make the tour. That said, you don't have to reserve the *time* in advance, though as other reviews have pointed out, if you only speak English, they have tours in 3 languages, so you want to get there relatively early the day of your tour, and redeem your tickets, valid for any tour the day, for passes, valid for a specific tour, before all the spots on the *English* tours are taken. They do have tours all day, though. At the end of the tour, they also have a small, presumably subsidized, shop selling pastel de nata, glasses of one specific bottle of Port, and espresso. I say presumably subsidized because, even by the standards of food and drink in Porto, already somewhat better than in the US, all three of those items were... inexpensive, and solid. Obviously that isn't why we went on the tour, but I did have a goal of trying as many of all of those as I could in the time I was in Portugal, so it was a fun bonus.

Impressive palace harkening back to Porto's mercantile past…read more Palácio da Bolsa is a neoclassical stock exchange palace built in the mid 19th century to impress visiting delegations when Porto was the commercial gateway into Portugal. We booked an English group tour (€14) that gathered at the Hall of Nations, a central courtyard with a glass iron dome up top encircled by 25 gold gilded crests symbolizing the countries of that age with friendly trade relations to Portugal. We toured various ornate rooms belonging to Porto's mercantile association. At the Commercial Court Room, a renaissance painting on its ceiling above portrayed the angel of justice with eyes open based on the city's belief. From there we passed by a small studio where Gustave Eiffel once worked on city projects. Next were the Golden Room and General Assembly Room where large wood paneling was made instead with plaster, an innovative approach at the time and the first application in Porto. From the Kings' Portraits Room we finally stepped into the stunning Arabian Room, a massive hall of staggering opulence that was meant to awe visiting trade delegations while resembling the Alhambra Palace. Intricate Moorish revival style details, elaborate geometric patterns from wall-to-wall, and beautifully colored stain glass left us speechless. We finished the tour heading down a grand marble staircase. Skip it or hit it? We found the tour visit incredibly informative and well worth the admission to see Porto's trading roots & past wealth on display.

The church is beautiful. The flow of the exhibition is excellent. You can feel the care that the…read morecity took in making the art not only stand out but be historically accurate and respectful. The explanations are in English and Portuguese. A wonderful and must see place.

I thought I'd have to bribe Jamie W to climb this historic tower, but he surprised me by not…read morewhining about it. I knew from more youthful vloggers on YouTube that the panoramic views were spectacular from the top. At 246 feet, the tower is the highest point in Porto's historic center. However, before we climbed the inevitable 240 steps, the museum beckoned. It was formerly the private quarters of the clerics who founded the church. The space now houses religious artifacts and related art exhibits and extends into the High Church Gallery, a balcony promenade that provides an elevated view of the church's ornate nave (Photo 5). Before entering the stairwell, we had our photos taken in front of a green screen for souvenirs they pitched to us later. The climb wasn't that bad, just a bit claustrophobic in some sections, specially when we had to squeeze by perspiring tourists. They were more spritzing than sprinting. There are two observation floors. The first is about 2/3 of the way up, while the narrower space at the summit provides the ultimate payoff with panoramic cityscape and river views (Video). As usual, the climb down was easier since we knew how long it should take. And yes, there were photos of us standing at the summit in comic poses. I usually bypass them, but for 8€, I couldn't help myself (Photo 7). RELATED - Exploring Porto? Here's a collection of places I've visited and reviewed: https://yelp.to/CzAl-vBlP0

A historic climb for a view of Porto's skyline…read more The Clérigos Tower is a baroque landmark easily spotted from vantage points across historic Porto, and therefore one that's worth climbing for that panoramic view from above. The 75m bell tower monument is connected to a church that was built for the Clergy brotherhood in the 18th century. The ornate church and relic exhibit are also worth sightseeing to gain appreciation of its history. We pre-booked our visit (€10) and were serenaded with a concert taking place in front of the brilliantly lit church altar. From there we were able to head above the nave for a full vantage of the church and dome in its pink & white marble tones. At our exact booking time, we were able to queue in line before taking the steps up the actual tower. The queue was slow-moving because the staircase is narrow and the steps themselves were quite steep making it challenging particularly for those with knee pains. Once we made it to the top, we were rewarded with the 360 panoramic views including the famous bridges connecting to Gaia, and the historical city centre with orange rooftops underneath. It can be a workout getting up and down as the tight staircase has to accommodate the constant two-way flow of visitors. Skip it or hit it? This is one of the prominent sites in Porto but be ready for the stairs.

I have never thought about rating a museum as 1 star, but this really did something special (or…read morelacked anything special) to afford this designation. The 12 Euro ticket comes with entrance into the main exhibitions as well as access to most of the gardens. Keeping in mind that this is a Contemporary Art Museum, I kind of understand the curation, but the artwork was extremely obscure and lackluster. For example, one entire exhibition was dedicated to materials sourced from Portugal, Dubai, and Greece (?) -- marble, timber, and I-beams. It was quite literally 5 pieces of each arranged into haphazard shapes and heights with speakers attached to them to mimic the audio of construction...Underwhelming is not a strong enough word. The rest of the "exhibits" mimicked this contrived art and did little to peak the interest of the observer. After agonising for an hour and trying to find a semblance of talent, you can head off into the gardens where...surprise surprise, there's a ton of construction and things are barely opened or labelled. You basically graze around woods without any direction or guidance, and try to avoid the jackhammers. If it wasn't clear, I feel strongly about advising people against this museum, especially since it's a ways away from the city centre.

This place was awesome and had a lot of different things to do. I enjoyed the art a lot but wished…read morethere was a little more in the main museum. The gardens are amazing and there are multiple outdoor sculptures. There is also some smaller exhibits in buildings around the grounds. The treetop walk was great, kids would definitely enjoy this. We brought my grandmother to the museum who struggled walking long distances. There were free wheel chair rentals near the front desk you just leave an ID. Overall a great experience, wish we had more time to enjoy everything!

The permanent collection is currently closed due to covid with no reopening date, so it's just…read moretemporary exhibitions for now The Dom Pedro exhibition was small and only of interest to aficionados of Portuguese history Italian/Portuguese Masters was really just drawings. Most weren't very interesting and of the Real Masters there was only one I spotted - a Leonardo da Vinci If you're in the area maybe it's worth dropping by but I don't think it was worth going out of your way to visit (it's a bit out of the way compared to other sights) and paying 3€. At least while the permanent collection is out of commission

Love this museum. For me visiting a city in a foreign land starts always with museum. The museum…read morein Porto in kinda unknown but lovely. Definitely a must visit place in Porto. Yeah, there are so many place to visit, but museum is my thing in any cities in the world.

We had a great time here today with our expert Ines. We sampled 3 different types of 10 year ports…read moreand splurged on the 10, 20, 30 and 40 yr ports.

My group participated in the port and chocolate tasting. It included a tour of the caves with a…read moreknowledgeable tour guide, followed by a three port tasting with dark chocolate truffles. A great way to learn about the history of port at Sandeman.

World of disappointment! Very overpriced. Long line for "boat ride". It's very lackluster. Waste…read moreof money and time. Someone mentioned that there were actors dressed up and performing as poets or navigators. We did not get this at all. Skip completely in my opinion. Not worth it at all.

If you like history or like museums in general this is a fun place to go! It's focus is on…read morePortuguese navigators and their discoveries across the globe. All there exhibits are interactive including a really interesting half globe that lets you select dates and see what maps of the earth they had in that year. All the information was on computers which had many languages to choose from. The info was detailed and talked about navigators and other influential people with some being a little less known outside of Portugal. The boat ride was fun and informational. The sets were well made and depicted Portuguese history across the world. Overall it was a fun experience for someone who likes history and learning new things.

Not a must-do, this free museum is still worth trying to squeeze in to your visit should you find…read moretime in your schedule. It is filled with several floors walking down the history of photography from the dawn of the camera to the digital age. You can pace yourself to whatever run time you have available. I spent about 45 minutes to an hour and was happily entertained. There are also a few good window views from this old converted prison. If you have extra time, consider their rotating special exhibition. However, entry to that side of the museum will come with a small charge.

A free museum that is inside what used to be a large prison. It is free and that is really it's…read moremain redeeming feature. I say that as the permanent exhibit of photography is quite limited. Lots of very large rooms that have very few photographs in them. I wanted to see more, more, more, but it was not to be. The did have a few displays of photography equipment, some of it quite old. This was nice to see but still limited. There is currently a temporary exhibit of photographs by Frida Kahlo but it seems to only be open for groups and pre-booked tours. [Review 9901 overall, 1479 of 2018.]

As I continue slowly catching up on finishing the *many* review drafts of places I visited in our…read morewhirlwind tour of Portugal in January, in this case one of a whole bunch of port-focused wineries within convenient walking distance of each other, that obviously being why I chose to stay at an airbnb on this side of the bridge, so I could visit as many of them as possible. Funny enough, at first glance, this tasting room felt *very* corporate - there's tons of space to spread out, but the overall vibe of the place was something like "museum gift shop". You can tell the receptionist is just a receptionist and has nothing to do with the wine's creation, which isn't inherently bad, it just sets a different tone than some of the *smallest* port tasting rooms. That said, their prices were extremely reasonable pretty much all across the board, including a base flight for 12.50 euros that had multiple standouts for the trip, enough so that this was the only tasting room where I went back a couple days later and self-constructed a second 20 euro flight that included a couple of their more somewhat more bottles. Though, funny enough, it was mostly their cheapest bottles that impressed me the most in their complexity of flavor - their tawny reserve, the Lagrima das Damas, the Lacrimosas, the base (slightly less sweet) white, and one truly interesting bottle, a Vinho Quinado, effectively a tawny port turned into an amaro with quinine and other botanicals, which as a cocktail nerd, obviously I loved learning about and trying. They *have* plenty of very expensive bottles, but the ones I mentioned were, as of when I visited a couple months ago, just *ludicrously* well-priced for how good they were. (I bought the most bottles here of anywhere I went, 3 including the Vinho Quinado - and would definitely have bought a couple more, if luggage weight hadn't been such a consideration.) I totally wasn't expecting to love their cheapest bottles, honestly, more than some of the much pricier ones I tried, here and elsewhere.

From a Kanaka, as you walk in, it seems like a typical tourist trap. Counter, Plexi glass, brand…read morenames all over. Not homey like the smaller port tasting spots. We took the $20 tour. Good history-buff tour. Warm in the museum. Bit stuffy but a great place to view memorabilia and learn the history of this influential family. Ended with a port tasting that was quiet nice. I prefer smaller tasting groups thene being part of a large scheduled group. Service was very good.

This is a very small museum for four euros. It is set inside of an old house and contains a lot of…read moreunique objects with a very broad theme. The Curation doesn't necessarily make any sense and things could be better labeled, but it was a nice way to spend a small amount of time. If you're into, slightly strange small museums, this is for you.