Palacio da Bolsa, Porto

The Bolsa Palace is set right in Porto downtown. It was built in 19c by the Porto Commerce Chamber with the idea to impress foreign traders and investors, as for centuries Porto was a huge and important trade hub. I was hesitating if to visit this palace, but having missed it 9 years ago when I was here I decided to go. Luckily, waiting time for the next tour was only around 15 min and they had available tickets for English tour (you cannot visit without the tour). Considering the palace, there are 3 impressive places: 1. the main hall with State coats of arms of the states Porto dealt business with, 2. the hall after the stairway which is beautifully hand carved in granite and 3. the last golden Arabic room which is really stunning. All other rooms are very average - you see much better in palaces throughout Europe. However, the biggest drawback was a tour guide herself - a young lady trying to be interesting, but speaking so loud and with such a heavy accent. I was struggling to understand her with that accent, and at the same time her loud voice echoed in those big spaces, so around the half I got tired from that. To conclude, go for the tour if you haven't seen many palace like edifices and if there isn't a long waiting time for your language tour.

Stunning place inside, definitely much better than outside. Sad that even though we bought the ticket online there was a fast queue where you had to specify the hour the the compulsory tour. It’s not like you can just enter and stroll around, you must chose a time and participate in the tour with 30 or more people. You can chose the language of the tour between Spanish, Portuguese, French and English. The space inside is really nice it’s worth to take pictures, kind that the tour is a bit long, it lasted about 1 hours for few rooms. Let’s say there was a lot to listen and standing