Where to Stay in Oporto :: The Pestana Porto Hotel

Where: Pra�a da Ribeira 1, Oporto, Portugal, 4050-513

December 10, 2007 at 11:12 AM | by femmefatale | Comments (2)

HotelChatter likes a good challenge. Here's the latest - find a good hotel in Oporto ('Porto' in Portuguese).

It's a fantastically lively, beautiful, cheap, cheerful city in the north of Portugal, but it's one of the poorest in Europe and the residents are only just waking up to modern tourism.

Most of the hotels there - residenciais or pensões - are the kind of cheap hostel-style crumbling old houses that went out of fashion when TVs were still black and white, with splintered wooden floors covered in what looks and feels like ripped 70s wallpaper, and bits of carpet stuffed into the holes in the wall.

But don't despair, there's a real gem of a hotel to be found in this city: the 4-star Pestana Porto Hotel. It's in an old, converted building, part of a cluster of 16th-century houses that make up a UNESCO World Heritage site.

It has the most fantastic location, right by the huge, rolling Douro river with its lit-up double-decker coat-hanger bridge, right near to the sweet old blue-tiled central train station, right on top of a whole riverside promenade of bars and restaurants and right at the bottom of a hill lined with cheap and trendy shops.

We at HotelChatter aren't ones to be blinded by locations, views and the sparkly lights with which they cover their façade at Christmas. So we went and tried it out for you.

And it's excellent. Take a lover. Get a room with a balcony over the river - tell them it's your anniversary and they'll put a tray of champagne and fruits and aphrodisiac nibnabs on the table.

There's a wall-mounted flat-screen telly for when your lover starts to get boring, and a CD player to dance to - plenty of room to dance as well.

Comfy beds and baths, although these old-fashioned Portuguese baths still all have a big tap at one end. Put your lover at that end. And in the morning, one of the finest breakfast buffets ever. You'll need it. Comfy beds and lovers make for tiring nights.

The Portuguese are some of the most naturally friendly people in Europe, and the staff at the Pestana Porto Hotel are a top example. Carrying your bags, smiling, helping with reservations and advice and taxis and the like, knowing your name...it sounds normal, but as you hotel-savvy people know, that kind of service is a rare thing these days...

Top marks for the Pestana Porto Hotel, the finest - in our opinion - in central Oporto. If you've stayed at any others in the area, let us know.

[Photo: VTR]

Comments (2)

Return to » Where to Stay in Oporto :: The Pestana Porto Hotel

I stayed in Porto a few years back. The Pestana is the most famous in the main square, which can get a bit loud on weekend nights. I actually stayed a bit farther off the main square at Pao De Acucar, which not only was not run-down but served us breakfast and had a gorgeous spiral staircase and a 4-post wooden bed and private bathroom. A short walk right through the UNESCO portion of the city and I was at the river. For the price, it was great.

http://www.venere.com/img/hotel/1/2/5/0/10521/image_hotel_interior_stairs_1.jpg

Hi there - thanks for your recommendation.

I walked past the Pao de Acucar one night, but it looked a bit tatty, at least from the outside...How long ago did you stay there?

And re noisy weekend nights at the Pestana...well, we were probably the culprits this time...

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