Travel: The gorgeous Livraria Lello in Porto, Portugal
Books, enveloped in beauty
The very first thing that strikes me as we arrive at the doorstep of the Livraria Lello in Portugal`s Porto, is the bouncer. He has a genial half-smile pasted on his lips, and is courteously listening to people whose tickets he is checking. But nothing can disguise the fact that he is a bouncer, probably the very first bouncer in all the world to grace the doorstep of a bookstore.
Because the Livraria Lello, which first opened in 1906, is a bookstore, packed into the compact confines of a neo-Gothic building that looks quite commonplace on the outside, but which has the most gorgeous interiors ever. And the reader/ the bookshop junkie/ the gawping tourist, none of them can enter the hallowed hall of this livraria without having purchased a ticket online. The voucher system, started in 2015 to `turn tourists into readers,` costs almost 16 euros but is entirely deductible against the purchase of books.
But first one has to gape. And there`s much to gape at.
The interiors of the bookstore at No. 144, Rua Das Carmelitas, are indeed, lovely. The soft gleam of wood is all around: the wainscoting, the flooring, the trellis patterns everywhere, the bookshelves. There is a stunning long panel of stained glass that serves as a portion of the roof. The Insta-worthy piece de resistance is the sumptuous staircase with blood-red stairs. Upstairs, there are posters adorning the upper reaches of the wall; one listing the `Could Haves` for the Noble Prize in Literature caught my attention: Tolkien/Maugham/Proust, yes. JK Rowling? Lewis Carroll? Harper Lee? For the Nobel Prize? Really?
If the bouncer was the first thing that struck me, the crowds inside are the second. We are visiting Portugal in the shoulder season and have seen healthy crowds but not a mad crush as it was inside this store. Was this crowd made up of gawpers or book-lovers? The long snaking queues in front of the billing counter made something clear: people were gawping, but they were also buying.
The English shelves had all the current bestsellers from Richard Osman to Dan Brown, and Colleen Hoover. There were children galore in the livraria, and almost all had a Harry Potter book in their hands. This is due to the persisting urban legend that JKR, who lived in Portugal for a while, was inspired by the ornate interiors of this livraria, something the author has stoutly denied.
Beautiful books in a beautiful store
The Livraria got its tagline in 2006 when the Spanish writer Enrique Vila-Matas referred to it as `the prettiest bookstore in the world.` Gemma is the space that Livraria Lello dedicates exclusively Rare Books, Manuscripts, First Editions, and `Luxury Books,` whatever they might be. There is a José Saramago Room stocking first editions and translations of the only Portuguese-language writer who has so far won the Nobel Prize for Literature.
In the upper windows on the left, are the `O Rosto do Porto` that celebrates Portugal’s second city through the faces of its people, celebrities as well as the common people.
Then there is the Le Petit Prince room, launched in April 2023, in the work’s 80th anniversary year, a space that celebrates Antoine de Saint-Exupéry`s magical book, The Little Prince.
I was looking for a book by Fernando Pessoa. When I asked a passing staffer, he was suffused with surprise and delight. Shepherding me to a (momentarily) less crowded corner, he broughtme loads of books by Fernando P. Since there was no place I could sit down and browse, I stood near a merch shelf (the usual stuff: books on the Livraria Lello, coffee mugs, tote bags) and looked through the works of this famous poet, writer, translator, literary critic. Every few minutes, my new friend Nunu would come by, and beam at me. If I`d stayed longer, I had a hunch he`d have invited me out for coffee.
I was in the bookstore for just over an hour; I would have stayed for far longer but for the crush of people. When I exited with a respectable number of books under my arm, it was with mixed feelings. There is no doubt that this was one opulent store. The moot question though, was whether it was doing roaring business because of its appearance or its collection of books.
Whatever, it seems to be a win for readers, gawpers and the bookstore.
A compacted version of this ran in The New Sunday Express Magazine of 30 November 2025.
https://www.newindianexpress.com/lifestyle/travel/2025/Nov/30/booked-for-life
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Sheila Kumar • November 30, 2025