Much of Porto’s commercial space consists of shops that appeal mainly to residents and, except for their curiosity value, only rarely to international visitors. In recent years, many of these have clustered in shopping malls. The newest and most elegant are the Centro Comercial Peninsular, Praça do Bom Sucesso, and the particularly charming Centro Comercial Via Catarina. It’s in the pedestrian zone of the city’s most vital shopping street, Rua de Santa Catarina, at the corner of Rua Fernandes Tomar. The storefronts inside duplicate the facades you’d see in a folkloric village of northern Portugal.

If you’re looking for the designer wares of noteworthy clothiers from France, Italy, and Spain, these malls will have them. Other shopping malls have a sometimes uneven distribution of upscale and workaday shops. They include the Centro Comercial de Foz, Rua Eugénio de Castro, which is adjacent to the sea and especially pleasant in midsummer, and the Centro Comercial Aviz, Avenida de Boavista, rather inconveniently located in the middle of the city’s largest concentration of automobile dealerships. The big but seriously decayed Centro Comercial Brasilia, which is, to an increasing degree, being stocked with inexpensive manufactured goods from Asia, is on Praça Mouzinho de Albuquerque. More chic and upscale, with a greater emphasis on clothing, furniture, and housewares, is the Centro Comercial Cidade de Porto, Rua do Bom Sucesso, whose shops are interspersed with restaurants, bars, movie theaters, and cafes.

Open-air markets supplement the malls. You can buy caged birds at the Mercado dos Passaros, Rua de Madeira (near the San Bento railway station), every Sunday from 7:30am to 1pm; and potted plants at Mercado das Flores, Praça de Liberdade, every day of the week between April and October from 9am to 5pm.

For a glimpse of the agrarian bounty of northern Portugal, head for the Mercado de Bolão, where hundreds of merchants sell food, flowers, spices, and kitchen equipment from the city’s most famous open-air market. Open Monday to Friday 9am to 5pm, and Saturday 9am to 12:30pm, it sprawls for several blocks beside one of the great shopping arteries of Porto, Rua de Santa Catarina.

Porto has always sheltered a community of artisans crafting gold jewelry from stones brought in from all parts of the once-mighty Portuguese empire. One of the city’s leading jewelers is David Rosas, Lda, Av. de Boavista 1471 is stocked with wristwatches, gemstones, and miles of gold chains.

If you’re looking for any standard international perfumes, as well as more esoteric brands available for the most part only in Iberia, head for Perfumaria Castilho, Rua de Sá de Bandeira 80.