Porto

Start your visit to Porto with discounted car rental offered by Online-Car-Hire. We offer fast online booking providing cheap car rental at Porto airport. All of our vehicle hire suppliers employ specialist staff at the end of the telephone for any further questions that might arise before or after completing your car rental booking. Incidentally the airport at Porto will be found 11 km from Porto city centre.

 

Perfect Porto, one of Portugal’s most important cities, Porto offers a cosmopolitan atmosphere, an historic city centre, bags of culture, a colourful past and a very nice drop of alcoholic refreshment.

Otherwise known as the ‘Capital of the North’ (or Capital do Norte), Porto is situated within the NUTSII region in Portugal. Porto is found in the north of Portugal on the Atlantic coast. The weather experienced here includes rainy winters and dry temperate summers. Enjoying a coastal situation, there are plenty more reasons to visit Porto than to soak up the sun rays on its luscious beaches.

The city’s history dates back as far as pre-Roman times. The discovery of Celtic citadels revealed Porto was provided a settlement location for the Celts. The name of the city however came from the Latin for Port of Gaia, Portus Cale.

Produced in Portugal’s Douro region, the alcoholic drink of Port has struck a chord over the channel in England for several hundred years. The export of English woollen cloth, the Methuen Treaty, the war with France and the Portuguese export of its wines are contributing factors that all became entwined during the eighteenth century. A considerable discerning market for port was to then become established across the channel. An English trading post was set up in Porto in 1717 and it wasn’t too long before the production of port became adopted by them too. The rest is history, as they say.

Why not enjoy an introduction to the city of Porto with a glorious tram ride around the main sights around the Douro. Before you start, pop along to any tourist office and purchase a Porto Card. For a small fee this enables you to enter many of the top museums and public transport without further payment. With a UNESCO World Heritage site within your grasp, it is a strong temptation to follow the crowds over to the historic centre of Porto. Known as the Ribeira, the historic centre’s main sights include the Cathedral, a handful of stunning churches, original city walls and some eye-catching collections of fifteenth century buildings. Other popular sights around the city centre in the style of nineteenth and twentieth century neoclassicism and romanticism include the Stock Exchange Palace, the Sao Benton Train Station and St Anthony’s Hospital.

As you would expect of a city proud of its heritage, Porto isn’t without a museum or two. The most popular artistic haunts of visitors tend to be the Museum of Contemporary Art and the Soares dos National Museum.

Concert halls too are in ample supply in Porto and seem to celebrate the nation’s love of the musical arts with truly elaborately decorated venues. For good examples of such stylish concert halls, head over to the Coliseu do Porto and the . The former, designed by the Portuguese architect, Cassiano Branco, is said to be the most elegant concert venue in the whole of Europe.

A symbol of the city and an attraction that presents one of the most recognized images of the city is the eighteenth century Clerigos Church. With its elongated bell tower, and built for the Brotherhood of Clerics, the church’s architect, Nicolau Nasoni left a legacy of many other buildings in the north of Portugal.

A massive cinema event every year is Fantasporto. Going by the name of Fanta also, Porto’s international film festival never fails to draw a crowd of tens of thousands of film lovers every year. If you are a film lover, this is one part of the Porto experience you might not want to miss so book early.

Porto Airport

Porto International Airport is situated 1 km from the city of Vila Baleira and 11 kilometres from Porto city centre.

Known locally as Aeroporto do Porto or Aeroporto de Pedras Rubras, the airport can be reached by Line E of the Porto Metro. There is a direct connection from the airport via this line to the centre of Porto. The cost for this journey is 1 euro 35.

The main railway station in Porto is located in Campanha from here you can travel directly to Lisbon. If you get to Campanha railway station, you can travel to the city centre by both suburban train services and the Metro. The central station is called Sao Bento.

STCP bus services alternatively connect the airport to the city centre.

Taxis are available from outside of the main terminal.