Just outside of Porto lies the magical Douro Valley. This UNESCO and European Union protected area is home to all of the world’s port makers. While the region is important to wine agriculture, it is also beautiful and magical. This important wine region is dotted with small charming towns and small family owned wineries. What makes it even better is that this wine region is accessible via a day trip from Porto. Keep reading to learn all about taking a day trip to the Douro Valley from Porto.
About The Douro Valley
The Douro Valley wine region is the world’s oldest wine region, which is why it’s designated a UNESCO Wold Heritage site. The site is defined by the Douro River flowing through deep hills. These hills have been terraced and farmed for hundreds of years.
If the grapes don’t come from the Douro Valley, you’re not drinking port, you’re drinking port style wine. The Douro Valley grows grape varietals that are turned into wine. Then, they are fortified with spirits before being put in oak barrels and shipped to Porto to age in Porto’s wine caves. If you’re planning on strolling the streets of Gaia and port tasting, you’ll be drinking wine made in the Douro Valley.
Getting Around The Douro Valley
There are two ways to visit the Douro Valley for a sightseeing tour: via a guided tour or via a self-drive tour.
The region is approximately a one hour drive East of Porto. However, the area becomes more scenic about an hour and a half from Porto.
There is public transportation to and from the area. However, this public transportation takes you to small towns. And the towns are charming, but the star of the show is the rural areas and the only way to get out there is via a car. Taxis and ride shares are in short supply so this is not a good option, in our opinion. If you want to do a scenic tour, you’ll need your own car or a tour guide.
The Best Douro Valley Tours
We’re focusing on tours in this post because we love drinking wine and that means a road trip is out. We’ve gone on lots of wine tours over the years and this was one of the most intoxicating tours. First, you are sometimes drinking port, which is stronger than typical wine. Second, because the Portuguese love drinking wine at lunch – and when in Portugal do as the Portuguese. Summize it to say: lots of wine was consumed throughout the day.
For the best experience, we think a small tour is best. Small tours generally are better in our experience but this was doubly true to the Douro Valley. Small tours mean smaller vehicles. Some of the roads we traveled in our passenger van would not have been possible to traverse in a mid-sized or full-sized buses that other tours use. So look for a tour with 8 or fewer people to get that small vehicle and custom experience.
Small tours are also happy to get suggestions for wineries. If you are really interested in going to a specific winery, ask the tour company well in advance. They may be able to make that happen for you.
Here are some highly rated tours, including the one we went on.
One Day In The Douro Valley
These tours leave early in the morning. Pickups are generally between 8-8:30. We caught our ride at 8 and saw loads of other tour buses out picking up passengers for the same reason. If you’re getting picked up, make sure you know what tour company you’ve chosen and what your guides name is (there were three vehicles at our designated meeting place). Most tours pick up at hotels but some hotels are down narrow streets so they may ask you to meet at a corner or a nearby hotel.
First, the van will head out of town on the highway. The beginning of the drive isn’t very scenic.
Stop 1 – Charming Town
Then you stop at Amarante. This town seems to be the unofficial start of the Douro Valley tour. This charming town has a bakery and a church lining the river. Both are worth a stop. At the church, look for the vendor selling penis cookies in honor of a Saint who used to live there and bring good luck in marriage to folks.
Stop 2 – Winery
Next, you’ll visit your first winery of the day. Your visit will include a tour. However, it is hard to know what that tour will entail as each winery focuses on something a little different. Our first tour of the day focused on the wine making process, including information on how the grapes were stomped.
Sometime in the morning, you’ll likely stop to stretch your legs at a viewpoint of the Douro Valley.
Stop 3 – Lunch
Next, you’ll head to lunch. Make sure lunch is included in any guided tours. We appreciated the sit down family style meal that our tour offered with a large variety of tasting options from the northern region of Portugal. Some tours just include a boxed lunch, make sure to look for the sit down lunch upgrade. Our lunch also included sampling some other Douro valley wines and ports with lunch. The meal in our tour included one of the top 3 meals we ate in Portugal!
Stop 4 – Douro River Cruise
Next, we went on a boat tour of the Douro River on a replica Rabelo wine boat. The boat tour was one of our favorite parts of the day. This tour involved a one hour boat ride in the basin of the Douro River valley. We were able to look up at all the beautiful terraced vineyards, spot birds and just enjoy the beautiful day.
Stop 5 – Winery
Next, your guided tour will likely include a stop at another winery with a tour. Our second tour of the day focused on the farming and harvesting of grapes in the Douro Valley and how that has changed over time. We even got to try some grapes, which were much sweeter than other wine grapes we’ve tried in the U.S.
Next, you’ll have a relaxing ride back to your hotel in Porto.
What To Budget For The Douro Valley
Most Douro Valley Wine tour hover around $100-120 EU/person. When choosing your tour, make sure to look for ones that include lunch, the boat tour, and the wine. For some tours, those are extra costs. If the tour costs $120 EU, it should include everything. However, if you aren’t interested in drinking wines and aren’t interested in the boat ride, you could save money with a shorter tour or a tour with more free time.
If you are visiting on your own, you’ll want to budget for a rental car ($20 EU), a tank of gas ($60 EU), a few wine tastings ($20-80 EU/person/each) and lunch ($15-50EU/person). Overall, we thought the wine tour was a great value.
Questions About The Douro Valley
Is It Better To Drive, Take A Tour, Or Take Transit In the Douro Valley?
We think a tour is the best option for the Douro Valley. And this is coming from people who almost always choose to self-drive. We think a tour is best because it is safer if you’re drinking wine – and also if you’re not. The roads in the Douro Valley were narrow and winding and I don’t think I would have been comfortable driving them dead sober. Additionally, we also think this was a great value for the money. We would have spent more money self-driving and visiting wineries than we spent on the full day tour. Lastly, I feel like we visited more local family owned wineries than we would have visited on our own. Our first winery didn’t even have a tasting room – they seemed to be open by appointment only.
Taking public transit is not an option for a day like we describe above. You can get here via the train system and wander the towns. However, the wineries are not in the towns. So we wouldn’t recommend train hopping.
Do I Need To Book In Advance?
If you want to stomp grapes or visit the more exclusive port makers, yes. Both of these options would mean you are visiting the Douro Valley with a car on your own.
However, if you want to visit with a tour, you can book the day before and you’ll be fine. There seemed to be no shortage of tour operators offering tours in Porto.
Do I Have To Like Wine To Visit The Douro Valley?
The short answer is no. The Douro Valley is an amazingly scenic destination. I enjoyed it for the views alone. Additionally, if you like farming and agriculture, you’ll appreciate the creative ways this region has been sustainably farmed for generations – and you’ll also appreciate what they’re doing now to keep the region alive. Lastly, the farm to table food here was some of the best food we had on our trip to Portugal!
Will I Get To Stomp The Grapes?
Mid-September through mid-October is grape harvest season. Try to seek out grape stomping or grape harvesting tours if you visit during that time. However, those experiences are limited and often sell out months in advance. They also can be hard to find – try reaching out to individual wineries and ask about their “harvest” experiences. Typically, those experiences are all day experiences at one winery and do not involve a tour of the region.
We hope this has helped you to plan your own Douro Valley day trip. It was one of our best days in Portugal and we had so much fun. For more information on planning your Portuguese vacation, check out our Portugal planning page here.
