Torre dos Clérigos (Clérigos Tower)

Inside the Clérigos church, museum and tower

The climb gets all the attention, but the way up is half the fun. You cross the church on its balconies and walk through the house of the brotherhood that built it.

The church from the balconies

The Irmandade dos Clérigos, a brotherhood of priests founded in 1707, built the church first, from 1732.

What makes it unusual is the shape: it was the first church in Portugal on an oval plan, with a gallery all the way round the nave. Your route follows that gallery, so you see the whole church from above, down to the marble high altar.

Look across the nave and you’ll spot the two organs facing each other, both from the 1770s. Their trumpet pipes stick out sideways, the Iberian way.

They were restored in 2014, and you can hear them at the free concert every day at noon. It lasts about half an hour, and the seats go to whoever gets there first.

The museum

The Brotherhood’s own house, from the 1750s, is now its museum: paintings, furniture, Porto silverwork and sculpture.

Among its rooms, the old infirmary holds the Christus collection, three rooms that grew out of a private collector’s gift in 2015. Another room, the Legacy of the Presidents, has a silver filigree model of the tower and a view of Porto by Alfredo Keil, who wrote the music of the Portuguese national anthem.

The climb and the view from the top

The staircase has 225 steps over six floors. It’s narrow, and people come down the same stairs you’re going up, but there are landings where you can stop and let them by.

Don’t worry, the climb itself takes five to fifteen minutes, depending on the traffic. At the top of the 75.6-metre tower, a balcony runs right round.

On one side you get the rooftops of the Baixa, Porto’s old downtown. On the other, the Douro, the bridges and the cellars in Gaia where the port wine ages. It’s tight up there and can be windy and cold, so bring a layer.

One thing to know: wheelchairs can’t reach the top, but a lift serves the museum floors, and there’s a room with a virtual 360° view. If narrow stairs aren’t your thing, the top deck of the Dom Luís I Bridge gives you a big river view instead.

Clérigos Tower tickets, time slots and hours

The day ticket always covers the tower and the museum. Buy the ticket on its own for €10, or a Porto pass from €29.50 that adds other big sights.

The Highlights Pass adds the Cathedral and a river cruise under the six bridges. The Historic Porto Pass adds the Cathedral and the World of Discoveries museum.

Tickets are for a set time, and people go up in slots of about half an hour. Get there ten minutes early: if you’re more than five minutes late, they can turn you away without a refund.

Since the balcony is narrow, go at the 9:00 opening if you can. Visitors report the tour groups arriving from about 11:00.

Pack light, too: backpacks and trolley bags aren’t allowed on the route, but the left-luggage desk keeps them free for an hour and a half. Toilets are on the second and fourth floors.

Nasoni and the building of the Clérigos Tower

Nicolau Nasoni was born in Tuscany in 1691 and painted in Malta before he reached Porto in 1725, to work on the Cathedral.

Here, the Brotherhood’s church, commissioned in 1731, was the job that turned the painter into an architect.

The tower came last. He presented the design in 1753, building started the next year, and the iron cross went up on top in July 1763. Nasoni died in 1773 and is buried in the church.

More than a century later, in 1910, the tower became a National Monument. It reopened in December 2014 after a full restoration, with the Brotherhood’s house turned into a museum, and the work won a Europa Nostra prize, Europe’s main heritage award, in 2017.

After the Clérigos Tower: Lello, São Bento and the Ribeira

From the tower the walk to the river is mostly downhill, with one short climb up to the Cathedral.