Parking in Porto

Any suggestions?

1. Don't bring a car
2. Stay somewhere else

Well you certainly won’t be needing the car when you’re in Porto, so you could park the car a little distance from the hotel and either drop your bags beforehand or just hump them over yourself after you park. If you google map “parking garage” or “garagem” you can find lots of options, not that far from your hotel ( I looked 😉). You can use a website like parkimeter.com to find out rates and garages and even get prepayed. Just remember, driving around that center part of Porto, the roads are narrow, kind of confusing, steep in places. Also the Portuguese drive pretty fast and like in any big city, aren’t the most patient drivers if you don’t know what you’re doing. Also google and Apple Maps get a little confused around there cause the gps location can sometimes suck with the narrow and twisty streets. There is on-street parking of course but it can be hard to find. I personally wouldn’t look for on street parking in that center part of Porto, it stresses me out. Stick to a garage.
But if you like to complicate things, you could do what I do. I’m a cheapskate so I prefer not to pay to park (my poor wife). In the past I’ve parked in Villa Nova de Gaia or in Matosinhos on the street and taken the light rail into town. The light rail is pretty nice and you see a lot. If you’re adventurous use google maps to check out the street views out of the city center a ways and identify places with likely parking. Then just match that up with the transit map. I mean, if you do that you may be setting yourself up for more of an adventure than you bargained for, then again you will probably discover something cool and maybe it’ll be fun.

Thank you PeteK for your suggestions. We are not going to park in the city center. We didn’t know about parkimeter.com. That will be very useful. We would not ordinarily have a car when visiting a city like Porto, but we have a lot of Portugal cities to see then we are dumping the car before we visit Lisbon. We usually prefer trains, but it didn’t work for our itinerary. Thanks.

Oh there’s a lot of fun stuff to see in Portugal by car. It’s not that Porto is horrible for driving, it can just be a little hard if you aren’t used to it. But if you try not to get frustrated you’ll do fine. Since you are heading down to Lisbon and have a car, consider stopping in Aveiro (a town of canals á la Amsterdam, kinda) and at Praia de Costa Nova (to see the supercool beach houses and to walk on a super nice quiet beach). Those are on the way down. Look them up, really neat towns. Have fun!!

So cool. Nice suggestions for Aveira and Costa Nova. I looked them up and see they are just about an hours drive from Porto. We will stop on the way down to Lisbon. Thank you again PeteK.

If you do go to Aveiro then maybe consider eating here:
Restaurante O Bairro, or
A Bateira. There’s actually a bunch of small restaurants in this neighborhood. Super quiet, on a little canal with boats tied up nearby. Mostly Portuguese people here. The neighborhood really feels like old fishing village. You can google those restaurants, I tried to include links but apparently this message board doesn’t let you do that. I will stop with all the advice now 🤭😋

Hi!

The nearest parking place is Infante D. Henrique. You must sell your kidneys to park there. There is also a park at the end of Rua das Flores, Cardosas, and for that one one kidney is enough. Then, depending on how many days you're staying, you have Parque da Alfândega that for some strange reason is expensive but has a very good price for 72 hours: 27 euros. Park at São Bento train station is cheap (10 euros a day) but dangerous, some cars had their windows broken while they were parked there.

A litle bit far away fom your hotel, parking at Via Catarina Shopping Center used to be cheap. Another one that is not in the "sell a kidney business" is Irmãos Rocha, at Rua Miguel Bombarda, around 14 euros a day, but besides being not near it is also in the midle of the constructions of the new metro line.

So, if you are not going to use the car while in Porto, the best advice I can give is: to find a park near the airport and take the metro to the city center.