Grande Hotel do Porto

Daniel Martins de Moura Guimarães was a Porto man who went to Brazil, made a fortune, came home, and decided the city needed a proper grand hotel. He commissioned the architect José Geraldo da Silva Sardinha, and the Grande Hotel do Porto opened on 27 March 1880 with French mirrors, gilded rosettes and marble columns, 40 rooms, five suites including a royal one, and separate reading, music, games and ladies' rooms.

The detail that has aged best is round the back. On Rua do Ateneu Comercial the hotel built public bath houses with hot and cold running water, which almost nobody in Porto had, and appointed two doctors to run them along with a gymnastics instructor. A hotel spa, essentially, in 1880.

What followed was a century of the city passing through: Emperor Pedro II of Brazil, Fernando Pessoa, politicians, writers, war refugees and, by most accounts, a number of people whose business was better not asked about. Manoel de Oliveira, the Porto-born director who was still making films in his hundreds, used the interiors as sets.

Those interiors survive: dark chintz wall coverings, hardwood panelling, velvet, gilt-framed landscapes. Rooms mix period and modern, with work by contemporary Portuguese artists and photographers on the walls, and some are split-level with a spiral staircase to a raised sleeping area. The restaurant is named for Pedro II and sits in a restored ballroom under chandeliers. There is a rooftop terrace with 360-degree views over the old centre and a kitchen garden supplying the kitchen.

The recurring criticism is size: several standard categories are small. There is no pool, only a small gym and a room for massage.

The location is the middle of Rua de Santa Catarina, the main pedestrian shopping street, 300 metres from the Bolhão market and the Majestic café, five minutes from São Bento station and about fifteen down to the Ribeira.