Where to stay in Porto: the best neighbourhoods and hotels

The Baixa is Porto's grand, granite downtown. Avenida dos Aliados sweeps up to the city hall, São Bento station dazzles with its blue-and-white tiles, and the Clérigos Tower and the Livraria Lello bookshop are a short climb away. Rua das Flores, pedestrianised and lined with cafés and shops, runs down towards the river, and the Bolhão market is just up the hill.

Hotel choices are excellent: a five-star in a palace with a view down the Aliados, a 500-year-old building on Rua das Flores next to the Misericórdia church, a hotel inside the famous A Brasileira café, and another five-star right on the avenue. It's central, lively without being rowdy, and a downhill stroll from Ribeira.

Ribeira is the Porto everyone pictures: tall, narrow houses painted every colour, stacked above a quay of restaurants and cafés, with traditional rabelo boats moored in front and the Dom Luís I bridge arching overhead. It's part of the UNESCO-listed historic centre, and on a summer evening, with a glass of port in hand, it's hard to beat.

The best hotels have the view to match: a five-star in a UNESCO-listed building on the river, boutique hotels with Douro views, one perched in the steep Guindais quarter facing the bridge, and a restored 19th-century building with its own art gallery. Expect crowds by day and lots of steps, but the scenery makes up for it.

Cross the bridge and you're in port wine country. Vila Nova de Gaia's riverfront is lined with the old lodges where port has been aged for centuries, many of them open for tours and tastings, plus the WOW cultural district. The view back across the Douro to Ribeira is the best in the city.

Gaia has some of the region's most exciting hotels: a Relais & Châteaux hotel with two Michelin stars and city views from its terraces, a five-star inside an old port cellar on the river, a waterfront hotel on the grounds of UNESCO warehouses with a rooftop bar, and an elegant hotel in the historic cellars district. It's quieter at night than Porto, and the walk home over the bridge is magical.

West of the centre, Boavista is Porto's modern business district, laid out along the long Avenida da Boavista. Rem Koolhaas's angular Casa da Música concert hall is the landmark, and the Serralves contemporary art museum, with its beautiful park, is not far away.

Hotels here are bigger and more modern: a five-star with a rooftop restaurant and bar overlooking the city and the Douro, a Crowne Plaza a short drive from Casa da Música, a Sheraton with a spa, and a hotel with an outdoor pool and a rooftop bar near Serralves. You'll need the Metro or a taxi for the old town, but you'll sleep well.

Where the Douro runs into the Atlantic, Porto changes character. Foz do Douro is an upmarket seaside district of promenades, beaches and smart cafés; just north, Matosinhos is a working fishing town with a wide surfing beach and streets of restaurants grilling fish on outdoor barbecues.

Stay in a palatial five-star with a spa on the Foz seafront, a maritime-themed design hotel near Matosinhos beach, a modern four-star in town, or a beach house with an outdoor pool. The Metro takes you into central Porto, and the airport is close.

Upriver from Porto, the Douro Valley is one of the world's oldest demarcated wine regions and one of its most beautiful: steep terraces of vines stepping down to a slow green river, dotted with quintas and whitewashed estates. Peso da Régua is the main town, home to the Douro Museum, and river cruises and scenic trains run up the valley.

The hotels are reason enough to come: a wine house hotel on a historic quinta, riverside hotels with balconies over the water, and five-star estates with pools and mountain views. It's an easy add-on to a city break, or a romantic few days on its own.

North of Porto, two historic cities make a great base or a long day out. Guimarães, known as the birthplace of Portugal, has a UNESCO-listed medieval centre, a castle and a grand ducal palace. Braga, the country's religious capital, is full of churches and crowned by the hilltop sanctuary of Bom Jesus do Monte, about 20 minutes' drive from Guimarães.

Stay in a luxury boutique hotel in a palatial 1827 building in Guimarães, an art hotel on one of its oldest streets, a modern five-star near Bom Jesus, or a central four-star close to Braga Cathedral with an outdoor pool for summer.