The view....!
This place is all about the view, which amazes.
We arrived on a stormy sunset evening. Porto glowed above the silvery Douro, the spires and steeples outlined against the orange sun that shot out here and there from the rain clouds. Before we even finished bringing in all our bags, we were all standing on the balcony, mouths agape.
We woke to a clear morning, Porto once again glowing, but now in bright early blue sky light. We drank our coffee on the balcony, pointing out to each other different visual treats.
Our whole trip was like that: whenever we were in the apartment, we were looking outside.
The apartment’s location is super. You pop out and across the bridge, Porto opening out before you. Or you turn the other direction out the front door and walk in seconds to all that Vila Nova de Gaia offers. (Be sure to check out the 7g coffee roaster/ restaurant, where we went every morning for the excellent food and service.)
(And if the thought of the bridge and all the other people at such a tourist spot makes you worry about noise, do not. When the windows are closed, the apartment is quiet. We slept beautifully each night.)
The apartment is otherwise okay. It was pretty clean (though there is some mold growing in the corners by the windows in the main bedroom) and the furniture is comfortable. The kitchen is bare bones, enough to get by.
The apartment is in a building of all vacation rentals. The host only deals with you by message and phone (and be sure to have a working phone; when we got there, another couple was waiting by the door, having emailed the host that they were arriving and waiting for him to show up. We also had been unclear on the need to call rather than message or email, but — after waiting a while — we called, and he stepped us through check-in... and then we lent our phone to the other couple, so that they could get in to their apartment. Who knows how long they would have had to wait otherwise...)
Perhaps we were spoiled by all the other apartments we’d rented on our month-long trip — including in Lisbon — where we’d always been greeted by a warm human and some sort of sweet welcome basket of goodies.
In addition, the host informed us at this anonymous check-in that we needed to leave 32 euros in cash when we left, because of a tourist tax in Porto. We checked elsewhere and learned that this tax does indeed exist, but the host should have included it in the apartment description — and Airbnb could do a much better job of letting people know about these extra taxes in Lisbon and Porto (but in Lisbon, the tax was made part of the up-front information for the apartment).
One final note: there is a parking garage right next to this apartment building, and so — if you are traveling by car — being able to park nearby is super easy (and adds 17 euro a day to the cost of staying there).
Would we stay here again on a return to Porto? Very possibly, because of the view and location... and knowing better the full cost and the lack of a human touch.