Oporto! March 2025 visit. I think my expectations for this city were a bit too high. It's certainly nice and you won't regret visiting here, but in my opinion the experience wasn't mind-blowing. You can easily see all of the most important sites within one and a half days in the city and feel content. In general, everything is colorful and covered in tilework ("azulejos"). It's a city that pictures well, especially in the sun. Everything worth seeing is all in the city's center and can be walked to – no need for public or private transportation.

Here's a quick run-down of items we visited in our two-day walking tour, from personal favorites to least:

• Gardens near the Crystal Palace - Gorgeous and completely underrated. A local friend showed us this location and it was exquisite, but I had not seen it on many online lists beforehand. Has a great mini tower that gives a viewpoint of the river, too.
• Tower of the Clérigos - A great little museum built into your journey spiraling up the tower that affords you the best viewpoint in all of Oporto.
• Bolhão Market - I could spend hours here, this market was awesome. So, so, many delicious and fun things to look at and try. This is coming from someone who has seen already seen a lot of these "outdoor stall markets" in Spain!
• Church of Carmo - Easily the best of Oporto's churches to visit the interior of. The entrance fee may feel a little bit high until you discover just how incredible the large museum inside is which guides you through the church, the secret "hidden house" and more. Well worth it.
• McDonald's at the Praça da Liberdade - I know what you're thinking on reading this, but this is one of the most unique and fun McDonald's locations you ever visit. It makes for great pictures to send back home to friends.
• São Bento train station - Very cool tilework inside here depicting national historical events that you should look up beforehand. While here you can also visit the "TimeOut Market" if you're interested.
• Librería Lello e Irmão (bookstore) - Incredibly intricate bookstore that they say inspired the Harry Potter aesthetic during JK Rowling's time living in the city. There are a ton of books with exclusive covers made for the store. However, the bookstore is SO popular that it is chronically packed with people now and you need to pre-buy tickets to enter.
• Don Luis I Bridge - This is neat to walk across, either on its top or bottom level. There are a lot of unique bridges in the world and I would rank this as a solid mid-tier one.
• Sunset at Moorish Garden - This is a super popular spot for locals young and old to gather and watch the sunset each day. It's like a mini block party, I was impressed but how many people crowded this little hill.
• Six Bridges boat tour - This is a nice boat tour that shows you the six (soon to be seven, I hear) bridges that give the locale its moniker "the city of bridges". Our tour had pre-recorded voices in four different languages that gave small tidbits of information about each of the bridges and what we saw along the riverbanks. Not crazy, but worth the decently cheap fare.
• Capilla de las Almas - At this point we had seen so many churches that we did not enter this one but instead just took pictures from its gorgeous tiled exterior.
• Palace of la Bolsa of Oporto - The traditional seat of the Oporto Chamber of Commerce and all commerical trade for the city. It's available only by guided tour, in four different languages depending on who signed up for a particular timeslot that day first. It's alright, and has one very impressive room modeled after Arabic architecture. (See picture attached to this review.)
• Cathedral of Oporto - A large cathedral that's worth seeing and walking around the interior of, but fairly average in comparison to a lot of European cathedrals.
• Bom Sucesso Market - Worth visiting if you went to the Bolhão Market and you can compare what a "traditional" market (Bolhão) looks like versus a "modern" market like Bom Sucesso. Bom Sucesso is very trendy.
• Plaza of Lisboa - A cute little plaza remodeled in the past few years to add a green space with olive trees above some trendy, modern shops.
• Church of Sain Ildefonso - Impressive exterior, but seeing the interior only requires ten or fifteen minutes.

There are a lot of local foods to try, also, which I don't usually mention in WHS reviews but I'm going to throw in here this time just for fun. Going on a quest to try Francesinha, Port Wine, Natas, Arroz de Pato, Cachorrinhos, Alheira, Panados, Bifanas, Sandwich de Pernil, and Caldo Verde during our time was actually pretty fun. (And surprisingly doable.)