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The first Portuguese moving pictures were taken in Porto by Aurélio Paz do Reis and shown there in 12 November 1896 in Teatro do Príncipe Real do Porto, less than a year after the first public presentation by Auguste and Louis Lumière.
Porto has several museums, concert halls, theaters cinemas, libraries and book shops. The most well known museums of Oporto are the Soares dos Reis National Museum (Museu Nacional de Soares dos Reis) that is dedicated especially to the Portuguese artistic movements of the 19th and 20th centuries, and the Museum of Contemporary Art of the Serralves Foundation (Museu de Arte Contemporânea). The city has concert halls of a rare beauty and elegance like the Coliseu do Porto, an exquisite example of the Portuguese decorative arts, the Rivoli theatre and the more recent Batalha cinema.
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 Casa da Música, a concert hall, on opening day
Casa da Música, a concert hall, on opening day
In 2001, Porto shared the designation Rotterdam). In the scope of these events, the construction of the major concert hall space Casa da Música, designed by the Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas, was initiated.
In recent years, UNESCO recognised the historic centre (which dates back to the Middle Ages and the Roman Empire) as a World Heritage Site.
The Fantasporto International Film Festival is also a great cultural event of the city, attracting many national and foreign film commentators to the city.
Several architectonic highlights adorn the city of Porto, from the main avenue in the cities center Avenida dos Aliados [English: Allies Avenue, after Portugal's participation in WWI], to the magnificent gardens of Palacio de Cristal, and from the millennia-old well-preserved Romanic churches to the myriads of painted tile-adorned interior and exterior walls that appear in both interiors, in the São Bento Station, and exteriors, in the church of Santo Ildefonso.
A guided visit to the old city's stock exchange (Bolsa), and in particular the Arab Room, is a gem that any visitor shouldn't miss.
Oporto is a small (in the European context) but an extremely rich city in cultural and historical terms. But its progressive abandonment is very prejudicial to its integrity. The more ancient houses are abandoned and the local government doesn't practice much actions of maintenance. Much of the city's oldest houses are in risk of collapsing.
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The city has a large number of public and private basic and secondary schools, as well as kindergartens and nurseries. Due to the depopulation of the city's interior, however, the number of students has dropped substantially in the last decade, forcing a closure of some institutions.
Porto has several institutions of higher education, the larger one being the state-managed University of Porto. The University of Porto (Universidade do Porto) is the largest Portuguese university, with approximately 28,000 students. There are also a state-managed polytechnic institute, the Instituto Politécnico do Porto (a group of technical colleges), and privately-owned institutions like the Portuguese Catholic University at Porto (Universidade Católica Portuguesa - Porto) and the Porto's Higher Education School of Arts (ESAP- Escola Superior Artística do Porto). Due to the recognition, potential for employment and higher revenue, there are many students from the entire country and Portuguese-speaking African countries, although particularly from the north of Portugal, attending a college or university in Porto.
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 Porto (north of river Douro, and Gaia, to the south of it (circa 2002)
Porto (north of river Douro, and Gaia, to the south of it (circa 2002)
Aldoar
Bonfim
Campanhã
Cedofeita
Foz do Douro
Lordelo do Ouro
Massarelos
Miragaia
Nevogilde
Paranhos
Ramalde
São Nicolau
Santo Ildefonso
Sé
Vitória
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Hotels in Portugal - Porto >>
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