WOW Porto - The Best Cultural District — Attraction in Vila Nova de Gaia

Because of several days of continuous rain, we decided last minute to visit this cultural district. We bought the day ticket on the official website the night before, which includes access to all venues. It’s great value for money, and I highly recommend the day ticket if you have half a day or more and plan to visit three or more museums.

We visited five venues in total: Wine, Cork, Chocolate, Pink (rosé), and History — and every experience was excellent. In the Wine Museum, we tasted three wines, and the Port wine was definitely the best. In the Pink (rosé) Museum, we sampled five rosé wines. One of them is very popular locally, and we loved it — it’s also very affordable and can be purchased either in the gift shop after the tasting or in local supermarkets. The Chocolate Museum offers six tastings, including dark chocolate with different cocoa percentages and other flavored chocolates.

My favorite was the Cork Museum. I even bought a cork-covered notebook from the gift shop — beautifully made, high quality, and better value than similar items I’ve seen in other local stores.

The whole district is very beautiful, with several restaurants to choose from. All the venues are modern, clean, and highly interactive. There were relatively few tourists, and the staff were all very friendly and welcoming. Highly recommended for travelers who have more time and want a relaxed, high-quality cultural experience.

7 museums in one place. All excellent. This is a World-Class Facility in a Heritage City. There is plenty for the entire family. If you love history, Porto Across the Ages; Planet Cork; The Chocolate Experience (taste test!); and the Wine Experience (taste test!). If you are a fan of archaeology, you must not miss The Art of Drinking. This is a private collection of drinking vessels and a look at history through this lens. Truly amazing. I spent 3 hours and absorbed only about a third if the information in this museum. The Art of Drinking, if you are a history or archaeology buff, is a two-day affair, without getting your brain taxed with too much in too little time. (Anyone in the know - ask about their Jomon vessel; a very unique piece)

Best of all are the staff! All friendly. All helpful. All very knowledgeable about the museums. Everyone I met had a smile on their face. Of course, as a tertiary job, they catch most of the negative flack from us customers when we have bad days. They are only people. Treat them like gold and they will treat you like diamonds. That is my experience at World of Wine.

If you are in town only for a week, pick some adventures around World of Wine but focus on this. This place takes time. Get a 2-museum or 3-museum pass. if you have all the time in the world, get a 5-museum pass. They are all worth it!

A set of old warehouses have been converted into the "World of Wine" comprising several museums and some upmarket shops, bars and restaurants. We purchased a 5 museum ticket which we used to visit the Chocolate Story, Planet Cork, Porto Region Across the Ages, the Wine Experience and the Pink Palace. The first three of these were interesting and informative, although we felt that the Porto Region museum would have benefited from either an audio guide or more interactive elements as there were rather a lot of information panels to read.

The Wine Experience was of less interest to us because we are already quite knowledgeable on this subject, although the street with buildings from different regions was a nice touch. The wine tasting lesson at the end was disappointing, no effort at all was given to telling us how to taste the wine (fortunately we already knew but others would not), it was just put in glasses and given to us.

The Pink Palace is just plain silly but we were expecting this and it gave us some laughs. To be honest we hadn't even realised that it included wine tasting, which came as a pleasant surprise.

We ate lunch at the T&C restaurant which was OK but nothing special.

Overall a nice place to visit, especially on a rainy or particularly hot day as most of it is inside air conditioned buildings, but a bit expensive.