North Portugal Tourism Guide - Porto Museums

Museu de Arte Contemporanea de Serralves

Further out west of Porto and well worth the visit is the contemporary art museum and park: Museu de Arte Contemporanea de Serralves and Parque de Serralves. This is a fantastic site in which contemporary art is housed in building designed by Alvaro Siza in the early 1990s specifically to house contemporary art but that also reflected its surrounding environment within the Serralves Estate. The mission of the Serralves Foundation is to help raise the public awareness of contemporary art and the environment through its art museum and multi-disciplinary cultural centre. It has a strong Portuguese bias but also includes work from artists all over Europe. It has been very well received and is well respected for having made significant in-roads into this aim.

The Serralves Villa (Casa de Serralves) was built by Carlos Alberto Cabral, Count of Vizela between 1920 and 1940. The villa and the park in which it stands were acquired in 1987 by the state in order to set up the Serralves Foundation. The Villa is a pink, art-deco building that was commissioned after a visit to the 1925 International Exhibition in Paris. It is the base for the Serralves Foundation and also acts as an extension to the museum in which temporary exhibitions are displayed.

This is set within the 18 hectare park which is the only known private garden built in Portugal in the first half of the 20th century by architect Jacques Greber who was commissioned by Cabral in 1932. The award winning gardens have undergone restoration works in recent years and throughout the importance of the need to conserve landscape heritage has been promoted to a wider audience. These now contain formal gardens and farmland and provide a beautiful contemporary setting for the wonderful buildings on site that reinforces the awareness of the environment in terms of contemporary art and design. There are several exhibitions on display at the museum and villa at any one time including works from crowd-pleasers like Warhol and Rothke alongside less well-known artists and in particular Portuguese artists. There is also a cinema showing films associated with different themes. You can take guided tours of the architecture, exhibitions and the park and they also run courses and workshops. There are restaurants and cafes on site and events are also held in the gardens throughout the year, check the website for the latest events and exhibitions.

The site is closed on Mondays. The Museum is open Tues-Fri 10am-7pm, Sat-Sun and public holidays 10am-8pm. Check their website for full details on opening times for all attractions and entrance fees.

Museu Nacional Soares dos Reis

Museu Nacional Soares dos Reis is the other contemporary art museum worth a visit while you're in Porto. Housed in the Neoclassical Palacio das Carancas are great examples of fine and decorative arts including sculpture by Antonio Soares dos Reis and Antonio Teixeira Lopes and the naturalistic paintings of Henrique Pousao and Antonio Silva Porto.

Rua D Manuel II, 4050-342 Porto. Tel: 351 223 393 770. Fax: 351 222 082 851. Email: mnsr@ipmuseus.pt. Open Tue 2-6 pm. Weds-Sun 10 am-6 pm.

Centro Portugues de Fotografia

The former 16th century prison, Cadeia da Relacao, now houses the Portuguese Centre for Photography (Centro Portugues de Fotografia). This has both permanent and temporary photographic exhibitions including work of Frederick William Flower a Scotsman who spent much of his life (1815-1889) in Porto and is considered a pioneer of Portuguese photography.

Open Tues-Sat 9 am-12.30 pm and 2-5.30 pm. Admission is free.

Museu do Vinho do Porto

Naturally enough you'd expect Porto to have a museum dedicated to its famous tipple. The museum goes through the history of port wine making and as it only opened in 2004 it's full of modern multilingual interpretation including touch-screen computer displays linked to port websites all over the world.

Rua de Monchique, 45 52 Porto. Tel: 351 222 076 300. Fax: 222 076 309. Email: museuvinhoporto@cm-porto.pt. Free admission on Saturdays and Sundays.

Open Tues-Sat 10 am-12.30 pm and 2-5.30 pm. Sunday 2-5.30 pm. Closed Mondays and holidays

Museu do Carro Electrico

For something a little less highbrow and a good family tourist attraction try the Electric Tramcar Museum. The trams around Porto used to be commonplace but only two are running at present. Porto now has the new underground trams so the old trams' days could well be numbered. The museum houses several restored old trams in what is a former switching house.

Open Mon-Fri 9.30 am-1 pm and 2.30-6 pm. Alameda Baslio Teles, 51, 4150-127 Porto. Tel: 351 226158185/2. Fax: 351 22 507 1150. Email: hdias@stcp.pt

Teixeira Lopes Museum, Vila Nova de Gaia

Over the water in Gaia itself is the Teixeira Lopes Museum that exhibits Lopes' artistic work. Lopes was at the centre of an important artistic and intellectual set that lived in Gaia at the end of the 19th century. His masterpiece is "A Inglesa" an enigmatic portrait of an Englishwoman. Along with the Diogo de Macedo Gallery attached to the museum, a wide range of art including paintings and sculpture are on display from a long list of Portuguese artists.

The museum is on Rua Candido dos Reis uphill from the waterfront and is fee to enter. Open Tues-Sat 9am-12.30pm and 2-5.30pm.