What to see at Torre dos Clérigos

The church front

Start outside. The church front is heavy with Baroque motifs, garlands and shells among them, under an indented broken pediment that English Wikipedia says is based on an early seventeenth-century Roman scheme. The central frieze above the windows carries symbols of worship and an incense boat. The monumental divided stairway at the foot of the church was completed in 1763, the same year as the tower. Nicolau Nasoni designed all of it, and scholars consider the church his greatest work.

The oval nave

The interior is a single oval nave under a dome, among the first Baroque church plans in Portugal to take an elliptical form. The altarpiece of the main chapel is polychromed marble, executed by Manuel dos Santos Porto. Nasoni entered the brotherhood and asked to be buried in the crypt, in an unmarked tomb; the exact spot is not known. What the church admits on a given ticket is set on the booking page, so check the description before you rely on seeing the interior.

The museum in the brotherhood's house

The Casa da Irmandade joins church and tower. It now operates as a museum, with rooms such as the Salão Nobre and the former infirmary. Part of the brotherhood's own collection and the Christus Collection are shown here, and the tower ticket's highlights include both: furniture, paintings and vestments of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It is the part of the visit that does not depend on the weather, and it sits between the church and the stair.

The climb and the bells

The tower has six floors of stepped size, and a narrow spiral stair inside it leads to the top. Counts of the steps vary by source, and the steps guide sets them side by side. The tower also holds a carillon, which the Portuguese Wikipedia says was acquired in 1995 and is one of the largest in the country. For centuries before that the tower itself was a landmark for boats heading up the Douro, and a daily noon signal.

Read next: How many steps in Torre dos Clérigos?

From the balcony

The staircase ends at viewing balconies, two of them at different levels, with a panorama of 360 degrees. Visit Porto highlights the Baixa and the historic centre, with glimpses of the Douro and the sea in the distance. A Porto newspaper described the view at night as the city lit by a play of lights stretching beyond the river, with the Serra do Pilar across the water as another of the area's popular lookouts. The one thing you cannot see from the top is the tower itself.

A multisensory climb

The tower's own website describes a multisensory space that simulates climbing the tower, available to all visitors since the restoration of the complex. It gives people who cannot manage the stair a way to follow the climb. It does not replace the view, which is the point of the tower, but it is part of how the brotherhood has opened the building to a wider public.

What to do around it

The Livraria Lello bookshop stands on Rua das Carmelitas near the tower, the Cordoaria garden lies on the route of the guided old-town walk, and the Avenida dos Aliados runs up to the city hall. São Bento railway station is worth a look for its azulejo panels by Jorge Colaço. The guided walk through the old town covers the Cathedral and the Clérigos Church, among other stops, in about three hours.

Read next: How to get to Torre dos Clérigos

Who this isn't for

If a long, narrow stair with no lift is out of the question, the climb is not for you; the tower ticket is marked not suitable for people with reduced mobility. The evening ticket is also not suitable for people with claustrophobia, heart problems or vertigo. For everyone else the tower is a short visit: the ticket gives its duration as about 30 minutes, and bags and backpacks are not allowed inside.