At the northern edge of Praça da Liberdade, where Porto's grandest civic boulevard begins its descent toward the Douro, a neoclassical granite palace that once served as a Dominican convent and later a government residence now contains the InterContinental Porto – Palácio das Cardosas. The building dates to the eighteenth century, its severe grey granite facade articulated by arched windows, wrought-iron balconies, and a roofline cornice that aligns precisely with the surrounding institutional architecture of the square — a coherence that makes the whole ensemble feel carved from the same stone as the city itself. The 105-room hotel opened in 2010 following an extensive restoration that preserved the palace's structural identity while threading contemporary infrastructure through its historic shell. The guest rooms, visible in the images, layer dark-lacquered furniture, velvet wingback chairs in dusty blue, and quilted sage bedcovers against white panelled walls hung with heavy damask drapes in tobacco and gold — a palette that sits somewhere between Portuguese aristocratic tradition and discreet Art Deco revival. Herringbone parquet grounds the rooms in warmth. The hotel's restaurant takes a sharply different approach: a glazed garden room where mature ficus trees grow through the floor, trailing ivy cascades from a suspended overhead grid, and paper lanterns hang between the canopy at varying heights, the overall atmosphere closer to a winter garden than a conventional dining room, softening the institutional weight of the palace around it.

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