From the Sé down to the Ribeira: a self-guided walk
By Alleytale
Porto's old riverside streets, from the cathedral hill to the Douro
Porto's old centre runs downhill to the river, and what stands along the way shows who built the city: the Church, the Crown and the merchants.
The stops
Building began in 1416, beside the convent of the Poor Clares, and the nuns settled in the church in 1427; the work was completed in 1457. Its interior is covered in gold and polychrome. It has been a National Monument since 1910.
Photo: xiquinhosilva from Cacau — CC BY 2.0 The cathedral was built on the site of an old chapel founded in 1108 by Henry of Burgundy and his wife, and work on the present building began in the second half of the 12th century. King John I married the English princess Philippa of Lancaster here in 1387. The Gothic cloister, built in the 14th and 15th centuries, is lined with Baroque azulejo panels of 1729 to 1731 showing scenes from the Song of Songs.
Photo: Reading Tom from Reading, UK — CC BY 4.0 The house takes its name from an oral tradition that Prince Henry the Navigator was born here in 1394, and the chronicler Fernão Lopes wrote that Henry was born in Porto. It was built in the 14th century as a royal customs house that also minted coins, to tax goods arriving on the Douro. Excavations since 1995 have uncovered a large Roman structure with coloured mosaics, and the building now holds the city's historical archive and an exhibition on Porto's history.
Photo: Hugo Cadavez from Maia, Portugal — CC BY 2.0 A fire in 1832 destroyed the cloisters of the St Francis convent, and in 1841 Queen Mary II donated the ruins to the city's merchants. Their Commercial Association built this Neoclassical palace on the site, with work beginning in 1842. The central courtyard, the Hall of Nations, is covered by an octagonal dome of metal and glass, and the Moorish Revival Arab Room was built between 1862 and 1880 and is used as a reception hall for heads of state visiting Porto.
Photo: Jérémy Toma — CC BY-SA 4.0 The Franciscans began a small church here around 1244, and in 1383, under King Ferdinand I, they started the larger Gothic church you see now, finished around 1425. The outside is relatively plain, but most of the interior is covered in Baroque gilt woodwork, mainly from the first half of the 18th century. The Tree of Jesse altarpiece, carved by Filipe da Silva and António Gomes under a contract of 1718, shows a family tree of Jesus with twelve kings of Judah.
Photo: John Samuel — CC BY-SA 4.0 The French architect Jean-François Colson designed this 19th-century customs house, ordered built on the old beach of Miragaia so that goods could come and go by the river quay. A crane for loading and unloading at the quay still stands outside, and it is protected along with the building, which became a national monument in 2023. The architect Eduardo Souto de Moura restored it, and it now holds the Museum of Transport and Communication and a congress centre.
Photo: Ralf Peter Reimann — CC BY-SA 2.0
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