Make the Most of an Impromptu Weekend Trip to Porto: Amazing Food, Great Views, and Steep Streets🇵🇹

Most of our trips are planned well in advance, researched, and excitement builds because of the prep we do leading up to the trip. Sometimes this leads to letdown, but most times we are prepared and expect to enjoy ourselves. This was also a very affordable city.

Porto, Portugal turned out to be a delightful surprise as the trip was spontaneous, booked shortly before our departure with minimal research. I managed to find a suitable hotel area, and that was essentially all the planning we did. Despite being just a weekend getaway, it became one of our favorite cities. Perhaps this was because we had no expectations.

We used Transferro to book the two and from transfer from the airport. If you have read past posts we will be doing this more and more because the simplicity and conveinence with baggage, stroller and a 2 year old. City center is about 35 minutes from the airport.

The primary thing to understand about Porto is that it is quite hilly. The river and the numerous bridges are major attractions, but they also result in steep inclines when traveling to and from the river. Despite this, Porto remains a highly walkable city, featuring staircases in various areas and at least one funicular, but not the most stroller friendly at time.

The positive side of having a steep grade is that there are regularly very nice views from both sides of the river you can take advantage of.

With that out of the way, it was still great to explore and has that normal old European city charm where not all streets make sense, it's easy to get a bit turned around, and there will be cobblestones.

The Food

The next best thing to Portugal for us has to be the food. It was simply amazing. Eating is a big thing we do when we travel, especially to new countries. That plus the fact that food here in Spain is a bit underwhelming and, if I'm being honest, lazy.

Traveling with a 2-year-old, we typically only eat quick, convenient food. The only time we actually sit down for a meal and a drink is when he falls asleep; we practically run to the nearest 4+ star google rated restaurant.

The first food we tried, and eneded up trying a lot of are something they are known for, the pastel de natas. These are little egg quite custards, little sweet, little savory, and delicious. Most cafes have them, some places will only serve those and coffee. They also have specically designed boxed made for the natas to take away. Genius. Easy walking food.

Due to the portability of the natas, many cafes also offer small quiches in similar pie forms for easy handling. Quiche is a popular on-the-go breakfast option because it provides protein and something more substantial than just carbs or sugar.

The first night we were there we found a good places to eat by the river and it honestly looked a bit too nice for where we would normally eat with Landon. But it technically didn't have table cloths so went with it and the staff were awesome and understanding of kids.

Everything we ate there was great but the star was a duck fried rice that even Landon ate the heck out of.

The next day, we crossed the river to explore more and ate at one of the many riverside restaurants. Most are touristy, and this one slightly was, but it had good Google reviews.

This is where I found my favorite dish, a kind of three-meat stew that was absolutely amazing. It was listed as Pica Pau on their menu, but the pictures online don't resemble what I had. The other dishes we tried were also excellent and came in really generous portions.

Lastly, in the gastronomy category is the Port wine. This is another large attraction in Porto and what they are known for. We are not ones for sweet wines; it was sort of a try once and check the box for us. I will say, though, that we had some sangria here that was fantastic because it was made with Port.

For those unfamiliar, sangria is often made using drier wines with some type of sweetener added. However, if you begin with a sweet wine, you eliminate that step. This inspired me to start making my mulled wine using sherry or port instead of a dry red wine with added sweetener. I definitely recommend it.

Liz would also want everyone to know that public toilets in Porto were free, which is rare in Europe, so that's a big win.

There aren't many playgrounds to mention. I believe we only encountered two during our entire visit, but we stayed relatively central, and given the terrain, I'm sure it's challenging to have many there.

Overall, we would definitely recommend visiting Porto. I believe we could have easily spent an entire week here, as there are many fantastic day trips from Porto, and we only explored the city center.

Top Tips

• Take an Uber/private transfer from the airport. With baggage, cobbled streets, and steep terrain, you don't know what your walk will be like from any public transport to your lodging. Double that difficulty if you have a stroller/kids.

• Go out and sample a variety of foods, and inquire with the server for more details about them. Some dishes, when served, may not match your expectations based on their titles.

• Consider having a carrier for small kids when traversing the city. Whether it be steep grades or long stair cases, its not super stroller friendly (though we used ours the whole time).

• Look at day trips from the city; there are a lot of awesome ones, especially if you have kids aged 5 and up.