We love food (restaurants frequented by locals are always preferred) museums, architecture and music

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We love food (restaurants frequented by locals are always preferred) museums, architecture and music. Suggestions for restaurants, accommodations, port tasting tours etc. We prefer kid friendly restaurants in los angeles small, clean local accommodations centrally kid friendly restaurants in los angeles located because we enjoy walking, exploring and using public transportation. Also any suggestions for travel to Porto? kid friendly restaurants in los angeles Train travel will allow us to see the countryside but is it efficient?
Porto is in the peculiar kid friendly restaurants in los angeles position of having perhaps the very best restaurant in Portugal -- in the Yeatman Hotel which is owned by Taylor Fladgate -- and otherwise being a surprisingly poor food town given how absolutely marvelous almost everyplace else in Portugal is when it comes to eating. The good news is that all of Portugal is so cheap, that if you ever wanted to "splurge", the Yeatman is the place to do it, because it will cost you one-third of what it would cost you anyplace else to "splurge." The Yeatman is in an extraordinary location for anybody interested in port wine, and it serves absolutely knockout port and port wine cocktails plus has this fabulous restaurant with an iconic view over the Douro and Porto. There is a tram you can take across the river for sightseeing. If I go back to Porto, I am staying kid friendly restaurants in los angeles there. (I only ate there.)
Otherwise, Porto does better with sweet hotels in its gussied up tourist center than it does with restaurants. Booking.com is probably your best source for that with up-to-date reviews you can read and you can search by budget. Porto is an endless fascination, and not one of the 3 guidebooks I had with me did it any justice. They all focus on the tourist scene by the riverbank, or try to send you out to the flashy art museum. Walk around kid friendly restaurants in los angeles on your own with your eyes open and try to figure out what is going on beyond the parts of town primped up for tourists. It's not at all dangerous and it is quite fascinating.
I agree about the restaurants. We were in Porto for a few days some years back and found it hard to find places to eat somehow--we like simple, kid friendly restaurants in los angeles local places, nothing pretentious. But we found it tough there--not so north of Porto at all.
We stayed at a really funky place a bit north of the center--Castelo de Santa Catarina. It was fairly inexpensive and basic, but pleasant, in a really unusual old building, an old convent. But a fair hoof to the historic center; we took buses and cabs as I remember.
We'll be back for a couple of days this March--I think I'm going to splurge and book us at the Intercontinental, mainly because it's close to the university where my husband kid friendly restaurants in los angeles will be attending kid friendly restaurants in los angeles a conference, and a lot closer to the center.
If you want a great place to eat in Porto go to O Paparico Rua Costa Cabral 2343. Make reservation 351 225 400 548. This place is owned by a young chef and he and his staff are what the culinary world of Porto should be like. Great food, small place, hard to find, and great service. I will be back there next month and I will be taking my partner there for his 50th birthday. It's a combination speakeasy, cave with rock walls, and it feels like you came to dinner at a friends house. You have to knock at the door with the knocker, they open the window and let you in. So amazing and not that expensive considering all of the tourist traps near the river. Stay away from the river restaurants if you can. It's more quatity than quality!!!
For Lisbon, we can recommend kid friendly restaurants in los angeles highly the Avenida Palace. It is in a great location, next to the train station, with lots of restaurants and shops to walk to. See my trip report on Lisbon, for details on day-trips we made and restaurants we liked.
If you like art, there is the Museu de Arte Antiga which gives you a good panorama of Portuguese art through kid friendly restaurants in los angeles the centuries (lots of interchange with Flemish styles in the 15th century or thereabouts). The Gulbenkian Museum is amazing but not so Portuguese it has some very good historic European art and also some fantastic Oriental stuff.
There is a really big choice of hotels kid friendly restaurants in los angeles in central Lisbon now so you're spoilt for choice: it really depends how much you're willing to pay and what facilities you want. A good mid-priced option is NH Liberdade. The Hotel Metropole is nice and right on Rossio square, so is ideal if you want to walk everywhere, but it is a bit poky. Or go upmarket to the Altis Avenida, which has a fantastic terrace.
If you like wine (I mean table wine as well as port wine) you might like to look up Have a Wine Day - www.haveawineday.com they do private day trips to towns with a vineyard visit and wine tasting thrown in so you can pack everything into one day. We did the Evora one, starting from Lisbon, which also included kid friendly restaurants in los angeles a stop at a fantastic circle of standing stones a sort of mini-Stonehenge. I think they do Douro wine trips as well, either from Lisbon or Porto.
I wouldn't wholly agree that Porto is not a good place to eat. I thought the updated Portuguese food at DOP was fantastic and here are some tips from a a friend from there: new restaurant Book next to the Hotel Infante Sagres, Shis on the beach at Foz, in the mid-price range there is Al Forno (Portuguese as well as Italian, like the name suggests), Canelas de Coelho and Abadia. There are also cheap places kid friendly restaurants in los angeles serving tasty local food you just have to hunt them in the backstreets. None of these are in the central riverside area, which really is very touristy. If you want a riverside restaurant, go further out, to Adega Rio Douro.
We had such luck in Lisbon being happy with our meals relying on nothing but our eyes and noses, and sometimes the encouragement of locals, it was just too noticeable when we go to Porto that the options were hovering between touristy and some unappetizing alternatives. We actually were staying on the back streets, higher up in the hills.
I've yet to hear anybody say: "I like pretentious places to eat!" but we quickly ended up feeling that if we didn't start seeking out places with some pretensions -- or at least ambitions --- for delivering quality food to our table, we were going to end up not particularly enjoying our meals. Our food was taking such a back seat to the wine we were enjoying in Porto (and not just Port), we began our hunt for quality restaurants with quality food to match -- alas, too late. Next time.
We stayed in Porto long enough to talk to a few people and visit both sides of the Douro. The terrible austerity that has beset Porto really makes it next to impossible to invest all that is needed to restore Porto's oldest buildings right now. The weekender tourists come in and head straight for the waterfront, and a great many of them want cheap, cheap, cheap first and foremost. There is more money walking around on the other side of the river, and it is easier to modernize. It's not really fair to blame old Porto for getting by on what it can. I hope tourism lifts up a lot of energetic natives and that more and more tourists kid friendly restaurants in los angeles come willing to pay a few euros more in appreciation kid friendly restaurants in los angeles of what it costs to do that in Porto.
One more thought: I think it is a great thing that the Yeatman has made such a spash in the world beyond Porto and even Portugal, getting recognition as being a destination kid friendly restaurants in los angeles restaurant. It helps frame Porto as more than a "cheap" destination. A flagship success like the Yeatman creates new opportunities for others at lower price points but who definitely kid friendly restaurants in los angeles hope to capture some sophisticated tourists, willing to spend more to get quality, if not always top prices kid friendly restaurants in los angeles and Michelin prices.
I hate to disagree with some of our valued posters here on Fodor s, but if I was staying in Porto for a few days, and wanted something a bit more intimate, then I would look at Four Rooms, a small luxury hotel in old Foz, a stylish B B, where the Douro river meets the Atlantic ( www.4rooms.org/porto/index.php/en/) . It's a favorite of the famous Portuguese architect Eduardo Souto de Moura, kid friendly restaurants in los angeles winner of the Pritzker Architecture Prize, who stayed there when in Porto a couple of years ago when accepting the prize. And from my understanding, kid friendly restaurants in los angeles he actually influenced the renovation of this small B B.
From Lisbon, there is a fast 3 hr train to Porto. To get to the Douro valley, catch the scenic train from Porto to Pinh o, changing kid friendly restaurants in los angeles at Regua. In Pinh o, you'll be in the heart of the wine region and there are nice vineyard stays and manor house B Bs nearby (a short taxi ride away).