Porto is more than the Port - and gluten free with ease

Ilene
Nov 30, 2024
5 min read

Updated: Aug 18

I’ll start with our overall thoughts on Porto before diving into the details of what we did, where we went, day trips and food (of course). I’ll start by saying David was more excited to visit Porto than maybe anywhere else on our itinerary and he loved it. Why? Because of the Port of course.

What we loved

the history of Gaia and how Port came to be
the smaller, very walkable and accessible city
Port.
Porto Tonico.
easy access to the beautiful Douro Valley and beach areas nearby
plant-based / vegan and gluten friendly options

What we didn’t care for

the city is pretty touristy even in the off-season
all the hills, well they weren’t all that awful
ambiance / architecture of the city wasn’t that appealing

So, let’s dig into the details.

As has been our M.O., we started our visit in Porto with a walking tour. As I’ve mentioned before, we find this a great way to get a grounding on the city we’ve just arrived in, an understanding of the history, culture to some degree and figure out what sites we might want to go back to. The guides are always great about providing recommendations along the way as well. In this case that meant where to get the best Porto Tonico, best Pastel de nata, and more. And so along the way, we drop pins on our maps and make notes on where we want to come back.

Mom, this is for you… this approach of deciding what we want to come back to visit doesn’t always work out perfectly. Having more than 2 days in a city makes us a bit lazy on the travel planning and we’ve had a couple of instances where we realized almost too late that there are sites that require tickets well in advance. This somewhat haphazard approach of ours has almost gotten us into trouble… more on that come whenever I get around to writing about Granada!

Ok so after a few hours walking the city, we needed a break and found it DaTerra Baixa, a vegan buffet that has a couple of locations, one in Porto and one in Gaia. The buffet was a little light on gluten free options, but they change the menu every day, so I think we just hit a bad day for my needs. Some people rave about this place and others think the flavors could be better, I’m with the latter..

Then it was time to do some meal planning and hit the market - I know, exciting right? Fortunately by the time we’d arrived in Porto we’d learned that El Corte Inglés is our best go to for all our grocery needs; at least in Spain and Portugal. They carry a ton of variety in foods including plenty of gluten free and plant-based options for us to choose from. And the produce is fresh and beautiful, sorta like home.

Finally we arrived back to our lovely Airbnb, a top floor flat with a big terrace and view of the river. David cooked me dinner while I enjoyed some much needed socializing via FaceTime with my book club (thanks again ladies for making the time of day work for me!)

Ok, from here on out we did a lot of wine tasting, in this case “wine” is mostly port. In fact, I think my social posts had my mom and aunt worried as we got an email from them asking how much we were drinking and spending on wine! Given this city was one of David’s most anticipated, we drank a lot. I’ll give a quick overview, but he’s done a very detailed exploration of our port experience in another blog post here.

The next three days were Port, Port, Port. First in Gaia at Taylors - my first real exposure to Port. Where/what is Gaia you may be asking yourself. Until we experienced it ourselves we didn’t fully appreciate that the city of Porto is not really where they make or cellar port. In fact, it’s across the river in Gaia, a totally different city.

Then day 2 and 3 involved a 2+ hour drive to the place where the magic happens with an overnight in Douro Valley and two full days of Port tasting. Thanks to many friends who had visited this beautiful region before us, we had all the recommendations we needed and lined up tasting reservations for both days… and we fit an unexpected one in at our Quinta hotel. The Douro Valley is truly unique, not just as a wine region but the geography of the area in general. The region follows the Douro River with terraced stone walls built to grow the grapes for wine. It’s stunning, unlike anything else I’ve seen and a little scary to drive through. Quick list of where we went:

Quinta do Seixo
Quinta do Tedo
Quinta Seara d’Ordens (my favorite)
Quinta da Pacheca (2nd place)
Quinta da São Luís (aka Kopke) (our hotel for the night)

After returning to Porto from the Douro Valley I insisted on a day of seeing a bit more of Porto itself. We went back to visit some of the sights our walking tour just walked by. We made our way back to the Porto Cathedral with its gothic cloisters and tower with great views, Praça da Liberdade, and wondered through the Bolhão neighborhood. We also made some critical stops for snacks along the way.

Let’s start with McDonald’s which has a location on Praça da Liberdade that is worthy of a date night (or so our guide suggested), so of course we had to visit. In order to meet the historical city requirements, McDonalds had to keep the esthetic of the original building they moved into. I think the chandeliers inside are hilarious, but boy do french fries taste like home no matter where you are in the world. We also stopped at Com Cuore which is a dedicated gluten free bakery and cafe, and I finally got to taste the Portuguese acclaimed Pastel de nata - yum yum yum. While there we met a lovely couple who we spent some time talking to. They are from the US, though retired now and have been living in Porto for two years. It was interesting to hear about their adventures traveling and living in Portugal as well.

As we wandered through the Bolhão neighborhood we happened on a local Mercado, a little touristy but was the perfect stop for another couple snacks.

Then another day of Port tasting… back to Gaia we went with reservations to visit Graham’s and Niepoort (this cellar was super cool) - again, check out David’s very thorough blog on port… he covers it all there.

We still had a few days left in Porto and hadn’t yet made it to the beaches, so off we went. About an hour drive south we enjoyed exploring a bit of Costa Nova and Aveiro. It was a lovely day, cool enough but the sun was out and the skies were blue. We strolled on the boardwalk, up/down the dunes, watched some surfers and enjoyed lunch with a beautiful view. Costa Nova has become insta-famous for their stripped houses, so of course we had to take our own pix as well. This area reminded me of the California coast, and gave me a much needed dose of “home”.