15 Porto Hotels with Histories on Both Banks of the Douro
The city’s oldest hotel, open since 1877, a baroque palace attributed to Nicolau Nasoni, a 1930s fish market turned hotel, and a wine hotel built by the owners of Taylor’s above the Gaia lodges.
Porto puts its hotels in old palaces, a fish market, the footprint of a burned theatre and the port wine lodges across the river. This list has the Grande Hotel Paris, open since 1877 and often cited as the oldest hotel in the city, the Palácio do Freixo attributed to Nicolau Nasoni, the Vincci in the 1930s Bolsa do Pescado, and the Yeatman, built by the owners of Taylor’s above the Gaia lodges.
The list is grouped by character, not ranked. Where a hotel’s own site could be confirmed, its name links there; the rest are listed without one.
Grand dames of the Baixa
Infante Sagres · Baixa / Aliados
The Infante Sagres opened in 1951 as Porto’s first five-star hotel, commissioned by the textile industrialist Delfim Ferreira. The Fladgate Partnership, owners of Taylor’s port, restored it in 2017 and 2018 and sold it in 2022, after which it traded as Hospes Infante Sagres. The French Experimental Group bought it in December 2025 and plans to relaunch it as Experimental Porto.
Grande Hotel do Porto · Baixa / Santa Catarina
The Grande Hotel do Porto opened in 1880 on Rua de Santa Catarina, a few doors from the Café Majestic. It is said to be one of the oldest hotels in the city still trading under its original name, and its Belle Époque salons and dining room, by the hotel’s account, survive from the nineteenth-century building.
Grande Hotel Paris by Stay Hotels · Baixa / Clérigos
The Grande Hotel Paris opened in 1877 on Rua da Fábrica and is often cited as the oldest hotel in Porto. Stay Hotels bought it and reopened it after a restoration; the breakfast room and rear garden are said to keep their nineteenth-century layout.
The One Monumental Palace · Baixa / Aliados
The One Monumental Palace occupies a 1923 building on Avenida dos Aliados. It opened in 2018 as Le Monumental Palace under the French group Maison Albar, with a restaurant, Le Monument, that holds a Michelin star. Spain’s H10 Hotels bought it in November 2025 and renamed it; the name recalls the Café Monumental that once occupied the ground floor.
Palaces reborn
InterContinental Porto – Palácio das Cardosas · Baixa / Aliados
The Palácio das Cardosas is an eighteenth-century palace on Praça da Liberdade, built on the site of the Convento dos Lóios. The building later held shops and offices before IHG restored the facade and interiors and opened it as a hotel in 2011.
PortoBay Flores · Baixa / Rua das Flores
PortoBay Flores was converted from a sixteenth-century palace on Rua das Flores, with a modern wing added behind it. PortoBay bills the building as five hundred years of history. It opened in 2019 as the group’s second Porto hotel.
Casa da Companhia, Vignette Collection · Baixa / Rua das Flores
Casa da Companhia opened in late 2021 after a restoration by the Mercan Group and became IHG’s first Vignette Collection hotel in Portugal in 2022. It is named for the Companhia Geral da Agricultura das Vinhas do Alto Douro, the Douro wine company chartered in 1756, which the hotel links to the building.
Torel Palace Porto · Baixa / Batalha
Torel Palace Porto occupies the Palacete Campos Navarro, a nineteenth-century palace near the Batalha. Its rooms and suites are themed on Portuguese writers and poets. It is the Torel Boutiques group’s second hotel in the city, after Torel Avantgarde.
Pestana Palácio do Freixo · Campanhã / Freixo riverside
The Palácio do Freixo is an eighteenth-century baroque palace on the Douro attributed to Nicolau Nasoni, the architect of the Clérigos tower, and classified a National Monument in 1910. The palace holds the public rooms; the guest rooms occupy the former Harmonia flour mill next door. Pestana has run it as a Pousada since 2009.
Markets, theatres and cafés
Vincci Porto · Massarelos
Vincci Porto is housed in the former Bolsa do Pescado, the 1930s riverside fish market by the architect Januário Godinho in Massarelos. It opened as a hotel in 2014; the Art Deco shell was kept and the interiors styled to the decade.
PortoBay Hotel Teatro · Baixa / Batalha
The Hotel Teatro stands on the site of the Teatro Baquet, which burned on 20 March 1888 with around 120 deaths. It opened in 2010 with theatrical interiors by the designer Nini Andrade Silva, and later joined the PortoBay group, which added its name.
Pestana Porto – A Brasileira · Baixa / Aliados
Pestana Porto – A Brasileira is built around the Café A Brasileira, opened in 1903 by Adriano Telles to sell Brazilian coffee. The hotel opened in 2019 with the restored café at street level; the café is listed on the European Historic Cafés Route.
Gaia wine lodges and the riverfront
The Yeatman · Vila Nova de Gaia
The Yeatman opened in 2010 in Vila Nova de Gaia as a wine hotel owned by the Fladgate Partnership, owners of Taylor’s, Fonseca and Croft. It is named for the Yeatman family of the port house Taylor, Fladgate & Yeatman. Its restaurant holds two Michelin stars, and the cellar is said to run to more than 25,000 bottles.
Forte de Gaia, Autograph Collection · Vila Nova de Gaia
Forte de Gaia opened in 2022 as The Lodge Wine & Business Hotel, built, by the hotel’s account, over centuries-old port wine cellars in the Gaia lodge district, with interiors by Atelier Nini Andrade Silva. The Spanish fund Azora bought it and relaunched it in 2025 as Porto’s first Autograph Collection hotel.
The Rebello Hotel & Spa · Vila Nova de Gaia
The Rebello occupies a former factory complex on the Gaia riverfront facing the Ribeira. It opened in 2023 and is a member of Small Luxury Hotels of the World; the conversion kept the industrial brick, timber and steel of the old buildings.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are these hotels ranked?
No. The groups sort them by character, and the order within each group carries no meaning.
What made a hotel interesting enough for this list?
A story. Every entry was a nineteenth-century grand dame, a palace restored, a market or theatre site reused, or a wine hotel tied to the port trade. Comfort alone did not qualify.
Why are there no prices?
Rates change daily and a priced list goes stale in a month. Where a hotel runs its own site, its name links there, so you see the current rate and book direct.
Should I stay in Porto or across the river in Gaia?
Porto’s Baixa puts you among the cafés, the station and the Aliados. Gaia puts you among the port lodges with the Ribeira skyline across the water, a ten-minute walk over the Dom Luís I bridge. Both sides sit within reach of the Douro Valley day trips on this site.
Which hotel puts me closest to the day trips on this site?
Most day trips from Porto run up the Douro Valley, to Guimarães and Braga, or down to Aveiro. The Baixa hotels around the Aliados and São Bento sit closest to the coach departures and the station.