Norte

Exclusive guide to the best holiday destinations in Norte independent reviews from award-winning travel writers

Vintage House Hotel

26/06/2018 by .
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It’s midday, the sun is shining and I’m eating lunch on a picnic table in the middle of the UNESCO protected vineyards of Quinta da Roeda, the grapes that make Croft Port wine. It’s a simple Portuguese meal but here, in the Alto Douro, among the centuries-old vines of Portugal’s oldest winemaker, it takes on much more significance. It’s living history.

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Hotel Infante Sagres

26/06/2018 by .
Hotel Infante Sagres Lobby 1

City centre hotels tend to come in two varieties; either bland international brands or faded dames from times gone by reinvigorated into trendy boutique properties. Fortunately, Hotel Infante Sagres in Porto’s centre is the latter. Not just reinvigorated but positively reincarnated into something even better than it was in its heyday.

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The Yeatman Hotel

25/06/2018 by .
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Standing proudly above the Douro river on the Vila Nova de Gaia side of Porto, The 5 star Yeatman Hotel has become a Porto landmark in a very short space of time. Quite fitting when you consider it is owned by the Fladgate Partnership, the British family dynasty that has been producing Port wine since 1692 and arguably made Porto what it is today.

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Vidago Palace Hotel

20/11/2014 by .
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It seems to me King Carlos 1 knew a thing or two about tourism when he ordered the building of the Vidago Palace Hotel at the turn of the last century. He and many of Europe’s well to do were coming to this special park in northern Portugal an hour or so from Porto to enjoy the magical healing powers of the iron rich mineral water which bubbled out from the underground spring. He wanted a grand hotel to be built here, a royal palace to make his elite visitors feel more at home and properly indulged while they bathed and drank the magical waters.

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