The Porto Tram

Line 1, Infante–Passeio Alegre: the river line

This is the one to take. It leaves from Infante, beside the Palácio da Bolsa and a minute from Ribeira, and runs west along the water the whole way to the Passeio Alegre garden at the river mouth in Foz. STCP puts it at every day between 08:40 and 20:43, roughly every 20 minutes.

The reason it works is geometry: the track is on the quay, so for most of twenty-five minutes the Douro is directly outside the window on the left going out, and the ridge of the city is on the right. It also drops you at the Foz do Douro end, which is a real destination — the promenade, the fort, the beaches — rather than a turning circle.

Line 18, Carmo–Passeio Alegre: the hill line

Line 18 runs from Carmo, at the top of the town beside the Clérigos tower, down through Massarelos and along to Passeio Alegre; STCP describes it as connecting the riverfront, the historic Massarelos parish and the Cordoaria garden. Every day between 09:15 and 19:45, about every 30 minutes.

It is the line for the Palácio de Cristal gardens and for the tram museum, and its climb through the older streets is the more interesting ride of the two if you have already done the waterfront. The half-hour headway is the catch: miss one and the wait is longer than most of the walks it replaces.

Line 22, the Carmo–Batalha loop: the one with no timetable

STCP names three lines but publishes running hours for only two. Line 22's hours are not stated anywhere on the Porto Tram City Tour page we read in Q3 2026, and the operator's leaflet does not carry them either. It is the circular route around the upper town between Carmo and Batalha, passing Aliados and the Guindais slope; it is the line locals point tourists at and the one nobody can tell you when to catch.

Our advice is to treat line 22 as opportunistic: if a car is at the stop, ride it; do not build twenty minutes of your afternoon around waiting for one. And if the conductor tells you a time, that is better information than any website has.

One historical footnote that puts the fare in perspective. STCP dates the network to 1872, the year the city's first American tram line was inaugurated, which makes this one of the oldest street railways still carrying passengers anywhere in Europe. What you are paying $6.97 (€6) for is a working antique with a conductor selling paper tickets, not a transport link — and that reframing is the whole answer to whether it is worth it.

There is no ticket office for the trams, no vending machine at any stop, and no online sale on stcp.pt or anywhere else. You board, you sit down, and the conductor comes to you with a card reader and a roll of tickets. That is the system, and it is why the queue at a tram stop moves slowly at busy hours: everyone is being sold to individually once the car is moving.

What does not work on a Porto tram: an Andante single at $1.63 (€1.40), an Andante 24 at $6.22 (€5.35), an Andante Tour 1 at $9.01 (€7.75) or Tour 3 at $19.23 (€16.55), the $2.91 (€2.50) on-board bus ticket, and the Porto.CARD, whose own leaflet excludes the trams and the Gaia cable car by name. STCP's own tariff page marks the Andante Tour titles "exceto elétricos e funicular" — except trams and funicular. If a blog tells you a 24-hour transport pass covers the tram, it is out of date or wrong.

The practical consequence for a day that mixes modes: a metro trip in, a tram ride along the river and a cable car across in Gaia is three separate purchases at three separate counters, totalling $16.74 (€14.40) for one adult before any attraction ticket. The getting around page sets out the zones; the Porto costs page puts a day's transport into a budget.

Standard entry is $9.30 (€8). Children and young people aged 6 to 18, students, over-65s and Porto Card holders pay $4.65 (€4); a family ticket for one adult and one child is $9.30 (€8); holders of a monthly Andante subscription pay $3.72 (€3.20). Under-6s, visitors with a disability and — on a limited daily quota — unemployed visitors go free.

Groups of ten or more pay $6.97 (€6) an adult, with a guided visit as a $2.32 (€2) per-person supplement.

The discount runs one way only, and the museum says so plainly: a tram ticket gives you money off the museum, and a museum ticket gives you nothing off the tram. So the order matters — ride first, then walk in.

Opening hours are Tuesday to Sunday, 10:00 to 18:00, with last admission thirty minutes before closing. It shuts on 25 December and 1 January, and from 13:00 on 24 December and Easter Sunday. Free-entry days are three a year: the day of the tram parade on the first Saturday of May, International Museum Day on 18 May, and the Entrelinhas event on a Saturday or Sunday in December. Note that riding a tram on parade day still needs a paid ticket.

Getting there: lines 1 and 18 both stop at Museu do Carro Eléctrico, and so do STCP buses 403, 500 and 900. By metro the nearest station is Casa da Música, which the museum itself puts at 23 minutes' walk down Rua D. Pedro V — far enough that the tram really is the sensible approach. It is also the closest thing Porto has to a wet-weather option on this page; the rainy day page has the rest.

Our answer: ride line 1 one way, out to Foz, at about 17:30, and come back by bus or on foot along the promenade. That gets you the whole river frontage in good light, ends somewhere worth ending, and costs $6.97 (€6) once rather than twice. A two-day ticket only pays for itself at the third trip, or at the second trip plus the museum.

Against the fare: it is more than four times the $1.63 (€1.40) Andante single that runs the same corridor by bus, the cars are crowded from mid-afternoon, and they are old enough that a summer car is hot and a rainy one is steamy. In favour: nothing else in the city puts you at window height beside the Douro for twenty-five minutes, the cars are the genuine article rather than replicas, and the fare includes a discount worth $2.79 at the museum if you use it.

One caveat that decides it for some people: the heritage cars have steps up from the street and no ramp, and STCP does not publish an accessibility statement for them. If steps are a problem, the Gaia cable car is step-free, and so is the metro.

Everything below assumes you start at Infante or Carmo, which is where both timetabled lines begin, and includes a realistic wait for a car.

The quiet departures are the first of the day on each line — 08:40 on line 1 and 09:15 on line 18. From about 14:00 the cars fill and stay full until the light goes, which in July is nearly 21:00 and in December is before six.

Our routing: finish lunch in Ribeira, walk two minutes to Infante, take line 1 at about 17:30 and ride the twenty-five minutes to Passeio Alegre with the river on your left. Walk the Foz promenade to the fort and the lighthouse while the sun goes down over the Atlantic — the Foz do Douro page has that walk — and come back on a bus for $1.63 (€1.40) rather than paying the fare twice.

The museum version: take line 18 from Carmo down to Massarelos in the late morning, spend forty-five minutes in the Museu do Carro Eléctrico with 30% off the entry because you rode there, and carry on into the Palácio de Cristal gardens up the hill, which are free and open until 21:00 in summer.

On a Monday the trams run and the museum does not, so that is the day for line 1 and Foz. In the rain, the tram is a poor buy — the windows steam and the far end is a seafront — and the rainy day page has better uses of six euros.