Norte

The North region of Portugal is home to the Douro Valley and Portugal’s second city, Porto. The Douro feeds into the Atlantic Ocean at Porto where you can spend days exploring the hills, the port warehouses, cruising the river and exploring the sites.

If you venture upriver into the Douro Valley for an overnight we recommend the wine hotel at Quinta do Vallado. On site, you can try a wine tasting, take one of the three marked hiking trails, float on the river in a canoe or have a catered picnic either riverside or at the hilltop. We were turned on to the hotel (we’d tried the wines already) by good friends from Tennessee and it is on our “places to take people” list when we have visitors.

Here are some Quick Links to other places to visit in the north region (also referenced below):

But there is a lot more to the Norte region than Porto and Douro.

First, check out the Vinho Verde. In the far northeast region of Portugal Vinho Verde is the main wine produced. This crisp, somewhat sparkling, refreshing white wine captured our attention in our first trip to Portugal in 2018. There’s plenty to love about it and we spent a few weeks exploring the northern mountains along the Rota dos Vinhos Verdes then dipped back into Douro. Amarante is a cool town to use as a base for exploration. Also, check out Ponte de Lima.