Guided Tours of Porto and Northern Portugal with María!

Duration: 8 hours

Cost: $700 USD + $70 per participant

Price includes: Your guide (Maria), private round-trip transportation, 1 winery visit and tastings, lunch

Optional inclusions: 2nd winery visit/tasting ($42 USD), 1-hour boat ride ($21 USD)

Max participants: 6

Note: All tours are private (only you and your travel partners)

Cancellation Policy: Read our full terms here

Always the most popular day trip from Porto, the Douro Valley deserves its fame and it richly rewards those of us who visit with great wine, great landscapes, and great fun! I love exploring this area and I think you will too.

To avoid the crowds, I recommend getting an early start and heading straight into the Valley. We’ll enjoy some great scenery and viewpoints on the drive there, before reaching out first stop of the day: Pinhão. Here, we can go for a walk around the town, which is quite charming, and take a 1-hour Douro River cruise if you’re interested (it’s optional).

From Pinhão, we’ll head off to a small local winery, where we’ll do a tour of the vineyard and their cellars, learning about the entire winemaking process. We’ll then enjoy a tasting of a selection of their excellent table wines.

It should be about lunchtime by this point, so next up on our itinerary is a fabulous meal of Portuguese fare in an old-school and traditional restaurant.

After lunch, we have a couple of options: for anyone who would like to do more wine tastings, we can continue on to our second winery of the day - another excellent small-scale producer -, where we’ll have another tour followed by a tasting of their port wines.

Alternatively, if more wine isn’t in the cards, we can instead spend the afternoon cruising through the valley, stopping off at scenic viewpoints and/or visiting a town or two.

As the afternoon winds down, we’ll wrap things up and will hit the road back to Porto or to your final destination for the day (if you’re staying somewhere else).

Quick note on transportation: Although I’m based in Porto, this tour can really start from anywhere nearby, including from destinations within the Douro Valley. I can also pick you up in Porto and drop you off in the Douro Valley, or the reverse of that. I’m flexible!

Duration: 4 hours

Cost: $285 USD

Price includes: Your guide (Maria)

Max participants: 10

Note: All tours are private (only you and your travel partners)

Cancellation Policy: Read our full terms here

Is this your first time in Porto? Are you looking to get the lay of the land? Want to gain a deeper understanding of this city, from its history and traditions through to present-day culture? Then this is the tour for you!

I fell in love with Porto almost immediately after I moved here back in 2011, and it will be my distinct pleasure to show you the very best of my beloved adopted hometown. So, put on some comfortable shoes and get ready for a very busy half-day of exploring!

Since Porto is a city of steep hills, I typically like to start this tour in the north of the city, at the highest point so that we spend the rest of our time together walking downhill. With that in mind, we’ll start our walk at the iconic Clerigos Tower and neighboring church, two unmissable sights for any visitor.

Next, we head to the Cordoaria area, where we’ll see the Lello Bookstore (from the outside), and the twin churches of Carmo and Carmelitas.

From there, let’s wander over to Aliados Avenue, the main boulevard of the city and the place where you’ll find our big banks, luxurious hotels, and city hall. The architecture here is far bigger and grander than anywhere else in Porto, so presents a very interesting contrast.

We'll then make our way to and through the Bolhao Market, where we’ll check out the stalls full of vendors selling typical treats, foods, and produce. We’ll usually spend around 30-45 minutes or so in the market, with plenty of time to sample whatever you’d like.

Moving on, we’ll visit the Sao Bento train station, before continuing to the city’s cathedral, which we can either view from the outside only or head in and explore more fully.

We’ll now weave our way through the tiny little ancient streets of the Jewish Quarter - the area around the Largo da Pena Ventosa - on our way down to the river and scenic Riberia district.

Finally, it’s time to cross the Douro River over to neighboring Vila Nova de Gaia, a lovely area famous for its port wine cellars and excellent and affordable restaurants. This is the perfect place to end the tour and grab a drink or meal after a busy day of sightseeing!

Duration: 4 hours

Cost: $285 USD + $63 per participant

Price includes: Your guide (Maria), all food/drink tastings

Max participants: 10

Note: All tours are private (only you and your travel partners)

Cancellation Policy: Read our full terms here

In my opinion, there’s no better way to explore Porto than on a combined sightseeing and food tour. And with this half-day experience, we get the best of both worlds: we’ll see the big sights (along with lots of other less-known ones) and learn all about this city’s history, all the while rewarding our hard work of walking and learning with copious amounts of fantastic local food.

Much more than just a food crawl or something of the sort, this is a tour through the city’s history and its gastronomic traditions, and I always make sure that we know not only what we’re eating, but also why we’re eating it, and how it became a part of Porto’s cuisine.

Following much the same route as in my walking tour above, we’ll start off in Bolhão market where we’ll sample some canned fish, a delicacy that no visit to Porto would be complete without trying. The most typical is sardines paired with Vinho Verde, but we can substitute and try any number of other fish.

We’ll then have a bifana - that most decadent of sandwiches, which has been feeding workers for generations - washed down with a cold beer.

Next up is the old Jewish Quarter/Largo da Pena Ventosa, where we’ll sample some fried codfish croquets and rosé wine.

Continuing downhill, we’ll get to the riverfront Ribeira district, where we’ll indulge our sweet tooth with a pastel de nata and a little coffee to keep us energized.

Still in the neighborhood, we’ll wrap things up at the best wine bar in the country, with a couple of glasses of fantastic Portuguese wine and a sampling of cured meats, jams, and cheeses.

Duration: 8 hours

Cost: $560 USD

Price includes: Your guide (Maria), private round-trip transportation

Not included: Entrance tickets to the Braga cathedral, Guimarães Castle, and Ducal Palace, lunch

Max participants: 6

Note: All tours are private (only you and your travel partners)

Cancellation Policy: Read our full terms here

While the north of Portugal is known for its lush greenery unlike anywhere else in the country, this is also a place full of history and tradition. And outside of Porto, nowhere is that history more completely on display than in the lovely cities of Guimarães and Braga.

Both cities are found in the Minho region, one of the greenest and prettiest in the country, and where we'll pass through on our way from Porto out to Guimarães, our first stop of the day. A World Heritage City since 2001, the town is built aside a sacred hill where the statue of Dom Afonso Henriques, our first king, watches over it.

One of our first stops in the city will be the impressive castle, from where we'll move on to São Miguel Church, and eventually the Paço dos Duques de Bragança (Duke's Palace). After touring these landmarks and monuments, we'll go for a wander through the historic core, which is a charming medieval center with beautiful squares.

When we start to get hungry, we'll be sure to visit Santa Clara’s pastry shop (Pastel de Santa Clara), to try some of the best sweets in town.

Finally, we’ll pay a visit to the 18th century São Gualter Church, the city’s protector and patron saint.

At this point, it’s time to head on toward Braga, where we’ll start our visit with a tasty lunch sampling the the city’s delicacies.

After lunch, we’ll get to know Braga. Although it’s now a modern city, you can still feel the history here, in this ancient place that the Romans once passed through.

We’ll visit the Cathedral, which holds the cross used in the first mass in Brazil, and will admire its magnificent pipe organs, tour the high pulpit and the mortuary chapels of some of Braga’s archbishops, and find the graves of D. Afonso Henriques’ parents (the first king of Portugal).

We'll then pass by some of the cities’ other attractions, such as the Paço Episcopal, with its lovely Santa Bárbara gardens, the churches of Largo and Cruz, and will eventually make our way to the República Square where, you can feel the pulse of this vibrant city.

There will also be time to climb the 581 steps from Bom Jesus Church and let ourselves be moved by its chapels and relax in its green gardens. Afterwards, we'll descend back down to the city via the only remaining hydraulic elevator in Europe!

At the end of the day, we'll hop back in the car and return to Porto, having just had a magnificent day discovering some of the most historically significant cities in all of Portugal.