Nice museum with mainly religious but also some secular items…read more It's set in a former church, so it has a nice atmosphere.

This is a museum, villa, gardens, farm, lake and more. Its…read morea very large property and worth visiting if you have a few days in Porto. I loved the treetop boardwalk, at the top of the trees. GORGEOUS trees, rose gardens and more!

I have never thought about rating a museum as 1 star, but this really did something special (or…read morelacked anything special) to afford this designation. The 12 Euro ticket comes with entrance into the main exhibitions as well as access to most of the gardens. Keeping in mind that this is a Contemporary Art Museum, I kind of understand the curation, but the artwork was extremely obscure and lackluster. For example, one entire exhibition was dedicated to materials sourced from Portugal, Dubai, and Greece (?) -- marble, timber, and I-beams. It was quite literally 5 pieces of each arranged into haphazard shapes and heights with speakers attached to them to mimic the audio of construction...Underwhelming is not a strong enough word. The rest of the "exhibits" mimicked this contrived art and did little to peak the interest of the observer. After agonising for an hour and trying to find a semblance of talent, you can head off into the gardens where...surprise surprise, there's a ton of construction and things are barely opened or labelled. You basically graze around woods without any direction or guidance, and try to avoid the jackhammers. If it wasn't clear, I feel strongly about advising people against this museum, especially since it's a ways away from the city centre.

When is a palace not a palace? I guess this 19th-century building provides the answer because this…read moreso-called palace doesn't have any connection to the royal family. Rather, it was Porto's historic center for trade and corporate law, as well as the local stock exchange. The neoclassical architecture is a striking sight, especially as you walk up the incline of the Ribeira. Reservations are required for a 14€ guided tour to enter the building. Was it worth it? Fortunately the answer is yes if just for two features. The first is the Tribunal Room, a cavernous courtroom decorated with large Michelangelo-style murals depicting the history of Portuguese commerce and law (Photo 6). The second and most impressive feature is the Arab Room, a formal reception hall Inspired by the Alhambra, Taking nearly two decades to complete, it incorporates intricate stucco work gilded with authentic gold leaf (Photo 9). There's also the Nations Courtyard which originally served as the stock exchange trading floor and normally showcases the painted coats of arms of countries that traded with Porto. However, a temporary art exhibit obscured the views when we were here. The grand granite Noble Staircase is impressive though (Photo 2) as are all the Moorish revival interiors. Less interesting are the merchant association offices and corporate studio spaces. Pure filler. RELATED - Exploring Porto? Here's a collection of places I've visited and reviewed: https://yelp.to/OrsoK1kR_F

As I continue to catch up on the large number of things I did in Portugal from, now, *several*…read moremonths ago... this is the one review I have left that is probably the least likely to have changed in a few months, of a building whose main attraction is the beauty of the building itself, beauty that was all constructed... not recently. Though I did also appreciate the tour, mainly in the history of the building, a building honoring not a king or a royal line like the other glamorous historical building we stopped at earlier in the trip, the royal palace in Madrid, but the history of commerce itself in the country, and the continued independence of a small nation surrounded by Spain on several sides, mostly on the power of their *money*. Money, which of course, they also used to construct this impressive building, that *reminds* you of a building a historical king would construct to honor his own family with stolen riches, but in this case, the riches seem to have been earned more... legally, at least. It is still also used at least sometimes for its original purpose (impressing foreign businessmen, i.e. business meetings), but obviously now mostly for our purposes it's a spot on all the tourists' list of half-hour tours. Definitely worth a stop if you're never been - though it is too bad tickets sell out somewhat in advance, in that I bought 2 tickets to this weeks earlier, not counting on my wife to be feeling rather sick that day and unable to join a tour. I don't think tours are unreasonably priced, given it's a unique, historical, and quite impressive building, but it was definitely not worth it at the effective twice the cost it ended up being when my wife couldn't make the tour. That said, you don't have to reserve the *time* in advance, though as other reviews have pointed out, if you only speak English, they have tours in 3 languages, so you want to get there relatively early the day of your tour, and redeem your tickets, valid for any tour the day, for passes, valid for a specific tour, before all the spots on the *English* tours are taken. They do have tours all day, though. At the end of the tour, they also have a small, presumably subsidized, shop selling pastel de nata, glasses of one specific bottle of Port, and espresso. I say presumably subsidized because, even by the standards of food and drink in Porto, already somewhat better than in the US, all three of those items were... inexpensive, and solid. Obviously that isn't why we went on the tour, but I did have a goal of trying as many of all of those as I could in the time I was in Portugal, so it was a fun bonus.

The permanent collection is currently closed due to covid with no reopening date, so it's just…read moretemporary exhibitions for now The Dom Pedro exhibition was small and only of interest to aficionados of Portuguese history Italian/Portuguese Masters was really just drawings. Most weren't very interesting and of the Real Masters there was only one I spotted - a Leonardo da Vinci If you're in the area maybe it's worth dropping by but I don't think it was worth going out of your way to visit (it's a bit out of the way compared to other sights) and paying 3€. At least while the permanent collection is out of commission

Love this museum. For me visiting a city in a foreign land starts always with museum. The museum…read morein Porto in kinda unknown but lovely. Definitely a must visit place in Porto. Yeah, there are so many place to visit, but museum is my thing in any cities in the world.

The church is beautiful. The flow of the exhibition is excellent. You can feel the care that the…read morecity took in making the art not only stand out but be historically accurate and respectful. The explanations are in English and Portuguese. A wonderful and must see place.

A small and neat museum that changes exhibits often, from their local artists…read more It has a rather large well-stocked gift shop. Bathrooms in the basement and outside, which is very clean.

A great place to learn more about the history of wine making along the Douro River. Friendly staff…read moreand modern feel.

It's really rather small, in reality an old olive oil mill with displays of tools from yesteryear…read more It's not the type of museum you tour on your own, but rather a guy led us through the various rooms showing us the machines and tools used to produce the olive oil and wine. Kind of interesting to see, especially for someone from the city, but not something worth going out of your way of. After the tour, you are treat to some wine and olive oil samples. The best part is the view of Douro Valley from the tasting room. As the museum sits on a hill top, the view is simply gorgeous.