Museums and Palaces

The Douro Museum in Peso da Régua is a regional museum and the ideal place for welcoming visitors and showing them a representation of the memory, culture and identity of the Douro wine region, classified as World Heritage.

The museum is housed in the fully restored and adapted Casa da Companhia Velha, a building that is emblematic of the history of the world’s oldest demarcated and regulated wine region. Combining tradition and modernity, it is a dynamic centre for cultural activities, where visitors can find an exhibition area – the nerve centre of the building – the “A Companhia” restaurant, the library, reading room and a wine bar overlooking the River Douro.

A few metres away is another place forming part of the “Memory of the Wine Region”, the name that has been given to the permanent exhibition housed in the former Armazém 43. This exhibition presents a description and history of the growing of vines and the production of wine in the region, considered an essential feature of its identity, and shows the main conditions that have helped to define it: the activity of winemaking, the construction of the landscape, the process involved in the production of wines of the highest quality, the relief of the surrounding area, the local fauna and flora, the rabelos (the boats used for the transport of Port wine), the Port wine estates with their many centuries of history, the historical heritage, the tradition of the grape harvest, the utensils used in wine production, as well as pictures of some of the great makes of Port wine.