Northern Portugal Index

Porto, Portugal

Page 9
Continued from page 8

ABOVE: The trainshed in São Bento, Porto's main railroad station.

Transportation

Arriving in Porto

By air. Porto Airport (OPO) has regular service from Amsterdam, Frankfurt, London, Madrid, Munich, Paris, Rome, and many other European cities. TAP Air Portugal flies nonstop from Newark to Porto several times a week, and SATA offers service from Boston during the summer months. TAP also flies to Porto from Caracas, Rio de Janeiro, and São Paolo. You can view an airport timetable in Acrobat PDF format, using the free Adobe Reader.

Airport ground transportation. Line E (violet) of the Metro de Porto connects the airport to the city center in about 25 minutes. See the Metro's From the Airport to Everywhere page for directions to the Metro station, which is only 50 meters from the terminal.

Other ground-transportation services include buses (handy for certain suburbs) and taxis, which are cheaper than in many Western European countries.

By rail. São Bento station is the main railway station in Porto. It's conveniently located in the historic center, and the hotels listed on my Porto Hotels page are within walking distance or a short cab ride away. For local, regional, national, and international train timetables, see the CP (Portuguese Railways) Web site.

By car. Porto is on the Atlantic coast of Northern Portugal, and it's easy to reach by motorway from Lisbon and other tourist areas. (Porto is also close to Spain--in fact, many residents of Galicia fly in and out of Porto Airport.) Use ViaMichelin to plan your route.

Local transportation

The Metro de Porto opened just a few years ago and has already grown into an extensive network. Two lines of special interest to tourists are Line E (violet line, to the airport) and the original Lina A (blue line, which runs between the cruise port at Matosinhos and downtown). If you have Adobe Reader on your computer, you can view and print a Metro map in PDF format. Also see Wikipedia's article on the Metro if you're a transit buff.

The Metro operates the Funicular dos Guindais, which runs from the riverside Ribeira district to the city center near the Ponte de dom Luis I bridge. Wikipedia has an interesting article on the funicular and its history.

Porto's city buses are operated by STCP, and they're convenient on routes that aren't served by the Metro. You might also want to try the "hop on, hop off" Porto Vintage Sightseeing buses and the city's vintage trams.

Finally, the Porto Card is worth considering if you're staying outside the center and plan to make extensive use of public transport.

Next page: Tourist information

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