Livraria Lello

Livraria Lello is regularly called the most beautiful bookshop in the world, and for once the superlative is earned. The interior is a fantasy of carved wood, stained glass, and a crimson staircase that spirals up through the centre of the building like a double helix made by someone who couldn't decide between Art Nouveau and Gothic Revival, so chose both.

The bookshop opened in 1906, and the staircase — the thing everyone comes to see — was designed by Xavier Esteves in a sinuous curve that's been photographed approximately one billion times. The ceiling is a stained-glass skylight that floods the upper gallery with coloured light. The carved wooden bookshelves reach to the ceiling on every wall. It looks like the kind of place where you'd expect to find a spell book, which is why the persistent (but unconfirmed) rumour that J.K. Rowling was inspired by Lello when she lived in Porto in the early 1990s has become inseparable from the shop's identity.

The bookshop charges a small entrance fee — currently around €8 — which is redeemable against book purchases and was introduced to manage the crowds. It's still packed, especially midday, so come when the doors open or in the late afternoon. Buy a book — the Portuguese literature section has beautiful editions — and consider that you're supporting one of the last independent bookshops of its era, in a building that treats the act of selling books as an art form.