Review of Porto Apartment
I asked the company to provide specific directions for coming to this apartment. The train from Lisbon arrives at Porto - Campanhã, from there you can take a free shuttle train inside the station to another train, that will take you to Porto - São Bento, it takes 5 minutes (1 stop).
São Bento train station is less than 5 minutes walking to the apartment. Exit Sao Bento station And turn left. Walk up the street a couple of blocks, and turn left past the Sao Bento metro stop (which is underground).
Filipa, a representative of ORM Told us to ring apartment 4B. But, she was waiting in the lobby for us. Filipa answered all our questions and was an amazing resource of information, including her favourite restaurants.
The apartment is bright and clean. Think IKEA. There are sufficient towels provided. The apartment is halfway between Sao Bento station and the entrance to the upper and lower decks of the bridge. The lower deck of the bridge takes you across the river to the side of the river that has the Porto wine houses. There is a stone walking trail on the left side of the bridge that takes you down all the way to the river from where you can walk across the lower deck of the bridge to the other side.
The apartment is in an old building. It has one of those old elevators where you hand close the door and gate. The interior of the apartment is looking a little tired, with refinishing needed for the countertop in the bathroom and resurfacing of some of the broken shower lining.
It was in the middle 90° when we stayed in Porto. The apartment does not have air-conditioning, but does have three large fans. However, at night, as the apartment is located on a busy street, and close to a busy intersection, there is a lot of noise from passing cars, trucks, buses and especially very loud motorcycles until the early hours of the morning. As a result, we were unable to get fresh air due to the noise that disturbed our sleeping. The traffic noise comes directly into the apartment through the gaps in the windows and it’s quite loud at times.
On the street level, there is a small grocery store run by a very sweet, elderly lady. On the left side of the front entrance there is a great wine store that also sells some souvenirs.