São Bento station
Twenty thousand blue azulejos telling the history of Portugal, in a working station hall.
Duration
15 min – 30 min
Best time
Early morning
Open
Every day
Entry price
Free
The station was built between 1900 and 1916 on the site of a Benedictine convent, whose name it kept. The hall is covered with twenty thousand azulejos laid by Jorge Colaço between 1905 and 1916: scenes from Portuguese history, the battle of Valdevez, João I entering Porto, and rural scenes along the upper frieze.
It is a working station: trains leave for Guimarães and the Douro valley while you look at the walls. You walk in freely, no ticket needed.
Getting there
Metro line D, São Bento station, in the middle of the city. The hall is open during railway operating hours.
Rules on site
It is a working station: let hurrying passengers through and do not set up in the middle of the hall. Morning light is the only light that properly reaches the azulejos at the back.
Other places in Porto
- Livraria LelloA carved red timber staircase under stained glass, in ten square metres of neo-Gothic.
- Ribeira districtNarrow coloured housefronts on the Douro, under the Luís I bridge.
- Vila Nova de Gaia port lodgesThe port lodges on the far bank, where the wine has aged in cask for three centuries.
- Clérigos TowerSeventy-five metres and two hundred and forty steps, above the tiled roofs.