Pinhão · Portugal
Pinhão Railway Station
A practical guide to Pinhão station and its 24 tile panels from 1937: which scenes to look for, how much time to give it, when it's least crowded and what not to pay for.
Yes, it's worth it, and it's 15 free minutes. It's a small station that works as an open-air gallery; the panels on the platform side are the best.
Pinhão station is a small stop on the Linha do Douro that opened on June 1, 1880. Its fame comes from the 24 blue-and-white tile panels installed on its outside walls in 1937, which tell the year of port wine: tending the terraces, the harvest, treading the grapes and the trip downriver in rabelos.
Our experience
We spent about 15 minutes there at 17:15 on Saturday, at the end of our Douro tour, after the cruise from Pinhão and the second tasting. We focused on the panels on the platform side, which everything we read called the best, and we didn’t hire anyone to explain them. It’s in our day 7.
A bit of history
For its first half-century it was just another rural station. Between 1935 and 1937 the railways and the Port Wine Institute commissioned the panels with a tourism goal in mind: to present Pinhão as the heart of the Douro. They were painted at the Fábrica Aleluia in Aveiro from photographs by the Casa Alvão studio in Porto, which is why the scenes are so true to how work was done in the valley.
Most Portuguese tiles show saints, kings or hunts. These show people working, and that’s what makes them rare. A restoration in the early 2010s won the SOS Azulejo prize in 2013. If you’ve already seen São Bento in Porto, with the history of Portugal in tile, Pinhão is on the same rail line, up the valley, and tells the other half: the work behind the wine.
What to see, in order
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The harvest
Women coming down the terrace paths with baskets of grapes on their heads. These are the most photographed panels on the platform.
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The grape treading
Barefoot men in stone lagares, treading the harvest.
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The rabelo boats
The flat-bottomed, square-sailed boats carrying casks downriver between schist cliffs. Notice the long stern oar.
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The vineyards
On the street facade, more landscape-style panels with the schist terraces and people working the vines.
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The canopy brackets
Eight iron brackets with circles and flowers, from the original 1880 building. Hardly anyone looks at them.
Tips we wish we’d known
Tips
- Start on the platform side: if you're short on time, that's what to see.
- Don't use flash: the glaze reflects and you lose the detail.
- If a regional train lines up with the panels behind it, that's the classic Pinhão shot. They come every two to three hours.
- There's a public restroom inside the building.
Do
- Make way for real passengers: the station is still in service.
- If a group is in front of a panel, wait one round; groups rotate within ten minutes.
- Walk a minute toward the river and look back at the station with the hillsides behind it.
Don’t
- Don't pay the "guides" on the platform who offer to explain the tiles for a tip.
- Don't accept the "photographers" who take your picture in front of the panels and then ask for €5–10.
- Don't buy tile magnets here; in Porto they cost half as much.
Frequently asked questions
How many tiles does Pinhão station have?
24 panels with 3,047 tiles, by the most-cited count, installed in 1937.
How much does it cost to see?
Nothing. The panels are on the outside walls, visible from the platform and the street.
Who painted the tiles?
The most reliable sources credit J. Oliveira and Lourenço Rodrigues Limas, made at the Fábrica Aleluia in Aveiro. They aren't by Jorge Colaço, the artist of São Bento, though many blogs say so.
How much time do you need?
Between 10 and 15 minutes.