Porto, the country´s second largest city, is in itself full of interest, but the district it heads, though largely industrialized, offers the visitor plenty to see.
Along the coast, holiday resorts like the cosmopolitan beach of Espinho, busy ports like Matosinhos, with splendid seafood, or traditional fishing towns like Póvoa de Varzim, but where there is also an animated casino. Inland, for example, the quaint charm of Amarante, with 17th century mansions overlooking the river and famous for a kind of sweet egg pastries called "papos de anjo" (angel bellies).
Right next to Porto you can visit, in
Vila Nova de Gaia, the lodges where Port wine is blended and aged and where you can taste the different varieties, or you may choose to take a river cruise along the Douro. The whole district is filled with prosperous towns, as commerce and industry thrive there, but you can drive along many calm roads with wonderful views over the river or enjoy a rugged and still unspoilt coastline.
Matosinhos Matosinhos is, in spite of its industrial port, renowned for its gastronomy based on seafood and also popular for its coastline of small beaches enclosed by rocks beaten by the sea. Matosinhos also boasts of a valuable patrimony visible in monuments such as the Monastery of Leça do Bailio, the first headquarters of the Order of Hospitallers in Portugal and with a 14th-century fortified church exhibiting Gothic arches and a beautiful rose window.
