One of the world's most beautiful train stations, beaux arts São Bento wings you back to a more graceful age of rail travel. Completed in 1903, it seems to have been imported from 19th-century Paris, with its mansard roof. But the dramatic azulejo panels of historical scenes in the front hall are the real attraction. Designed by Jorge Colaço in 1930, some 20,000 tiles depict historic battles (including Henry the Navigator's conquest of Ceuta), as well as the history of transport.
Shutterstock / Massimiliano Pieraccini
Ïã¸ÛÁùºÏ²Ê¼´Ê±¿ª½±'s must-see attractions
0.42 MILES
Igreja de São Francisco looks from the outside to be an austerely Gothic church, but inside it hides one of Portugal’s most dazzling displays of baroque…
2.73 MILES
This fabulous cultural institution combines a museum, a mansion and extensive gardens. Cutting-edge exhibitions, along with a fine permanent collection…
0.2 MILES
From Praça da Ribeira rises a tangle of medieval alleys and stairways that eventually reach the hulking, hilltop fortress of the cathedral. Founded in the…
Museu Nacional Soares dos Reis
0.59 MILES
Porto's best art museum presents a stellar collection ranging from Neolithic carvings to Portugal’s take on modernism, all housed in the formidable…
0.4 MILES
This splendid neoclassical monument (built from 1842 to 1910) honours Porto’s past and present money merchants. Just past the entrance is the glass-domed…
Jardins do Palácio de Cristal
0.81 MILES
Sitting atop a bluff, this gorgeous botanical garden is one of Porto's best-loved escapes, with lawns interwoven with sun-dappled paths and dotted with…
1.4 MILES
At once minimalist, iconic and daringly imaginative, the Casa da Música is the beating heart of Porto's cultural scene and the home of the Porto National…
29.5 MILES
Braga’s extraordinary cathedral, the oldest in Portugal, was begun when the archdiocese was restored in 1070 and completed in the following century. It’s…
Nearby Aliados & Bolhão attractions
0.13 MILES
Lined with bulging, beaux arts facades and capped by the stately câmara municipal (municipal council), this avenida recalls grand Parisian imitators such…
0.18 MILES
Nicolau Nasoni designed the Igreja dos Clérigos, with its theatrical facade and unÂusual, oval-shaped nave, resembling a Fabergé egg due to its dusky pink…
0.19 MILES
At the southern end of Rua de Santa Catarina is the lovely, eclectic Praça da Batalha, framed by Nasoni’s gracefully baroque Igreja de Santo Ildefonso…
0.2 MILES
From Praça da Ribeira rises a tangle of medieval alleys and stairways that eventually reach the hulking, hilltop fortress of the cathedral. Founded in the…
0.2 MILES
This gracefully baroque, early 18th-century, twin-towered church sits on the Praça da Batalha, stopping you dead in your tracks with its resplendent…
0.21 MILES
Sticking out on Porto's skyline like a sore thumb – albeit a beautiful baroque one – this 76m-high tower was designed by Italian-born baroque master…
0.22 MILES
Once part of a Franciscan convent, this church hides an opulent interior behind its unassuming facade. Gothic in shape, with a fine Renaissance portal,…
0.24 MILES
Ostensibly a bookshop, but even if you’re not after books, don’t miss this exquisite 1906 neo-Gothic confection, with its lavishly carved plaster…