# Staying in Baixa, Sé & Ribeira, Porto: Map & Verdict

Verdict: Recommended. Book here without thinking about it.

Interactive map: https://stayzones.com/where-to-stay-in-porto/baixa-se-ribeira
Every Porto district: https://stayzones.com/where-to-stay-in-porto.md

The whole UNESCO centre in one parish: Aliados, the cathedral, the Ribeira quay and Cedofeita's shopping streets. Everything you came for is inside a 20-minute walk, and so is everybody else.

Facts: 5 min walk to Avenida dos Aliados; 30 min to the airport; 30 min to the beach; price €€€; best for first-timers, sights, food, couples; lines A, B, C, D, E, F.
Safety: Mixed after dark. The steps between the cathedral and the tourist office collect drinkers at night, and the shortcut down from there is the one stretch Wikivoyage tells travellers to avoid. Walk down Rua das Flores instead - it is lit and busy until late.

This is one administrative parish with six old names in it, and it covers almost everything a first visit to Porto consists of. São Bento and its tiled hall, the cathedral on its rock, Livraria Lello, the Clérigos tower, Bolhão market, the Aliados boulevard and the Ribeira quay are all inside it, and none of them is more than 20 minutes on foot from any other. Six metro lines meet at Trindade, one stop north of Aliados, so the airport and the beaches are a single ride away.

The cost is the hill and the crowd. The Ribeira sits at river level and Aliados sits about 60 metres above it, on granite setts that turn slick in rain; the walk back from dinner is a climb every night. Restaurant prices on Cais da Estiva and Rua das Flores are set for people who will not return, and the Galerias de Paris bars run to 02:00 on Friday and Saturday with the drinking done standing in the street.

Book here for a first trip, for a short trip, and for any trip where you would rather not think about transport. Ask for a room on a courtyard, or one street back from Santa Catarina and Rua das Flores.

What works:
- São Bento, the cathedral, Lello and the Ribeira are all within a 20-minute walk
- Six metro lines meet at Trindade, one stop from Aliados
- Tram 1 leaves the Ribeira quay for Foz along the river
- The one district where dinner at 22:30 needs no planning

What does not:
- Ribeira quay restaurants are priced for people who will never come back
- About 60 vertical metres of granite setts between the river and Aliados
- Galerias de Paris drinking runs to 02:00 on Friday and Saturday
- Rooms on Santa Catarina and Rua das Flores get street noise most of the night

Hotels in Baixa, Sé & Ribeira: https://www.stay22.com/allez/booking?aid=stayzones&link=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.booking.com%2Fsearchresults.html%3Fdest_id%3D1279%26dest_type%3Ddistrict%26group_adults%3D2%26no_rooms%3D1

## Other districts in Porto

- [Gaia Riverside (Santa Marinha)](https://stayzones.com/where-to-stay-in-porto/gaia-riverside): Mixed. The port lodges, the cable car and the postcard view of Porto - which is the catch, because the postcard is of the opposite bank. You sleep 15 minutes and one bridge from what you came to see.
- [Bonfim](https://stayzones.com/where-to-stay-in-porto/bonfim): Mixed. The cheap side of the centre: 15 minutes east of Aliados on a rare flat walk, five metro lines at Campo 24 de Agosto, and streets that the renovation money has not reached yet.
- [Boavista & Massarelos](https://stayzones.com/where-to-stay-in-porto/boavista-massarelos): Mixed. Porto's business address: the big Avenida da Boavista hotels, Serralves and its park, and a river bank with nobody on it. Quiet, well built, and no metro station inside the district.
- [Foz do Douro & Nevogilde](https://stayzones.com/where-to-stay-in-porto/foz-do-douro): Mixed. Where Porto meets the Atlantic: beaches, the promenade and the most expensive rooms in the city. It is also 7 km from the cathedral, with no metro station and one slow tram.
- [Paranhos](https://stayzones.com/where-to-stay-in-porto/paranhos): Avoid. The university, the teaching hospital and forty thousand students. Good metro, the cheapest rooms in the city, and no other reason for a visitor to be here.
- [Campanhã](https://stayzones.com/where-to-stay-in-porto/campanha): Avoid. The long-distance station and very little else. The cheapest rooms in Porto, 3 km east of São Bento, in a district being rebuilt around a bus terminal and a car park.