Pousada de Viana do Castelo

The concept is pretty simple, really: take a grand old Belle Époque building on a mountaintop overlooking the Atlantic, freshen up the guest rooms, furnish that big vista-rich veranda, and drop in an elegant restaurant serving fresh Portuguese fare. Ostensibly the pousada’s raison d’être is the lovely old church nearby, Santa Luzia, but even the most dedicated pilgrim will probably acknowledge that the natural splendor on display is the real attraction. One can hike, bike, golf, fish, sail — but in the end, the point of coming way up here to the northwestern edge of the country, past the outskirts of Porto, is to sit back and enjoy the surroundings.

While the guest rooms are relatively unadorned — not much more than sunny windows and a comfy bed — the public spaces live up to the grandeur of the setting. If you can look away from the views out the dining room window, you’ll find a ceiling dripping with crystal chandeliers, and the polish on the parquet floors is at least a couple layers deep. Outdoors, the pool is ringed with trees, set at the edge of one of many landscaped terraces.

Though the town of Viana do Castelo is about the furthest thing from a hard-charging metropolis, it’s not hard to understand, once you’ve arrived, why it has been occupied going all the way back to Mesolithic times. Surrounded by verdant hills, cooled by breezes off the ocean, lined with rivers that make their way toward a long, gently sloping coast, it’s a landscape that just seems to breathe relaxation. That there’s a quaint old town, all red roofs and white stucco, at the bottom of the hill, only makes the view from above all the better.

How to get there:
Pousada de Viana do Castelo is located 47 minutes away, by car, from Porto Airport.