Porto · to take home

Four things worth the weight. The rest is a keyring.

1. 

   A bottle from the cellar you actually visited.

   Buy it at the end of the tasting, not from a riverside stall with a plastic cork. The lodge shops in Gaia sell every age and size, and most will pack a bottle for the plane.

   Choose a cellar in Gaia

   Or book the tasting straight away: Cálem cellar tour and tasting (Tiqets). Port in a lighter bag: the port-filled chocolates of Arcádia, a Porto chocolatier since 1933.

2. 

   Tinned fish

   Sardines, mackerel, octopus. Conservas are the honest souvenir. A good grocer in Cedofeita beats the shop with the giant sardine on the door.

   See how they are made: Pinhais factory tour

   Tiqets · Matosinhos

   To buy: the Comur cannery runs the Fantastic World of the Portuguese Sardine shops and sells online. Theatrical, but the tins are real.

3. 

   Soap from Claus Porto

   If you want something that lasts after the wine is gone. Their own shop is in the centre; the airport also sells it, worse value. They also sell online.

   Claus Porto shop on Rua das Flores

   For soap plus everything else Portuguese-made in one stop — tins, ceramics, notebooks: A Vida Portuguesa, with a shop at Time Out Porto in São Bento station.

4. 

   One tile, not a set.

   Azulejos as a single piece travel. A “hand-painted” stack on Rua das Flores is often a mould. Better: paint your own.

   Paint a tile: azulejo workshop in Porto

   Civitatis

   Want one painted by professionals? Fábrica Sant’Anna has hand-painted tiles since 1741 — the workshop is in Lisbon, and they sell online.

We do not run a shop. Cork bags, rooster magnets and “I love Porto” shirts are fine if they make you smile — they are not why you came.

Shop links on this page (Claus Porto, Comur, A Vida Portuguesa, Arcádia, Sant’Anna) are plain links — we earn nothing on them. Only the tour and workshop buttons marked with a partner name are affiliate links.