Mid-range · 6-hour walk · Porto
Clérigos to Foz in six hours
The tower, the bookshop and the market, then the tram down the river to where it meets the Atlantic.
The three-hour route does the Ribeira and the port lodges, which is Porto at its most photographed. This one goes uphill instead, through the part of the city that actually works — the bookshop, the market, the gardens — and then takes the 1 tram along the Douro to Foz, where the river ends. The tram is a 1930s wooden car and the ride is worth as much as the destination.
The route, stop by stop
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Livraria Lello
Buy the timed voucher online; it is redeemable against a book, which makes the entry fee sting less. Go at opening or in the last hour, and know that the famous staircase is red-painted plaster, not wood.
45 min here Walk here → -
Clérigos Tower
Two hundred and twenty-five steps and the best 360 of the city, including the only angle where you see the Douro, the bridges and Gaia together.
40 min here Walk here → -
Capela das Almas
Nearly sixteen thousand azulejo tiles on the outside, applied in 1929 to a church from 1801. On the corner of a busy shopping street, which is half the effect.
15 min here Walk here → -
Mercado do Bolhão
Reopened in 2022 after a long restoration that kept the traders. The upper gallery is where to eat; the ground floor is where the people who live here shop.
35 min here Walk here → -
Jardins do Palácio de Cristal
Terraced gardens on the bluff with peacocks and the widest view of the river mouth. Free, and locals treat it as the city's back garden.
45 min here Walk here → -
Foz do Douro
Arrive by tram from the previous stop
Take the 1 tram from Infante along the river — wooden, slow, and the whole point. Foz is where the Douro meets the Atlantic, with a lighthouse, a rocky shore and the seafood restaurants Porto goes to at weekends.
60 min here Walk here →
More in Porto
Every walking route in Porto, or the full Porto guide for where to stay and what a day costs.