The Art Nouveau front of Livraria Lello

Livraria Lello

Best time: The first entry of the day; buy the ticket online in advance
Getting there: A few minutes on foot from Aliados or São Bento metro stations

Why it’s in the log

Livraria Lello opened in its present building in 1906. Inside, a forked wooden staircase painted red rises to a gallery of carved shelves. Since 2015 the shop has charged for entry, because so many people came to look rather than to buy.

Many of them came because of Harry Potter. Rowling lived in Porto in the early 1990s, teaching English, and the story went that the staircase inspired Hogwarts. In May 2020 she said she had never been inside the shop and hadn't known it existed. It's beautiful enough not to need the story.

Mentioned alongside

City

Porto

Portugal's second city, on the steep north bank of the Douro, where J.K. Rowling lived and taught English in the early 1990s.

Part of

Harry Potter

Destinations for Harry Potter Fans

Fourteen places for Harry Potter fans, from the Leavesden studios and an Oxford staircase to the Glenfinnan Viaduct, the Cursed Child in the West End, Universal's Wizarding World in Orlando, and one famous Porto bookshop that had nothing to do with it.