donaldsc

I am trying to plan impossible 7 day DIY driving tour of Portugal. We are going to be taking 2 cruises next fall - a Barcelona to Barcelona cruise and Porto to Porto Douro River boat trip. I have 10 days between cruises to see as much of Spain as is reasonable. I also plan to have time before the Barcelona cruise in Spain and after the river cruise in Portugal This post addresses the time after the Douro River cruise..

Considering that we will be away from home for 40+ days on this trip, we can only allow 7 days for touring Portugal after our Douro River cruise.. I have read too many guide books that list what you should see and they are all confusing. We are interested in historical sites, small villages, food, wine, outdoor sites, interesting churches to an extent, museums to a limited degree, and art museums only if they are very important. We hope to split our limited time between Lisbon and 1 or 2 places outside of Lisbon. We do not want to spend this limited time doing one night stands in 7 different places.

Even though we will be stopping at Lisbon on our cruise for 2 days, we will not have much of an opportunity to see much of Lisbon during our port stop. We have booked a 1 day tour to Sintra and we have also booked a half day walking tour of Lisbon on the other day.

Our thought is that for the part of our week outside of Lisbon, we pick 1 or 2 good central locations and do day tours from the central location.

Quite frankly, I do not know much about Portugal so I have no idea what place(s) we should hunker down in and what we should see from our hunker down site. I am also not sure whether we should devote our Lisbon time just to Lisbon or if we should do day trips outside of Lisbon.

I need all the help I can get.

DON

sandralist

This is very subjective, but were I moving around for more than a month, I think I would just want to stay put in one place. Unless you are very allergic to cities, I suggest spending all your time in Lisbon. As cities go, it is not very abrasive. It has a very relaxed, Floridian feel and lots of beautiful vistas over the water. The city has very good public transporation connections to nearby day trips, and short term rental apartments there are very cheap. Again, this is just me, but I would rent a spacious apartment with a beautiful view and just play it by ear every day about what felt like fun to do. Sightseeing, shopping, or a day trip -- or it might be doing a laundry and making myself some buttered toast (Lisbon has fantastic bread!)

http://www.rent4days.com/lisbon-apar...x-bairro-alto/

Robert2533

I'm a little confused You mention seeing as much of Spain as is reasonable, yet talk about spending the time in or around Lisbon.

Since you will be doing this following the Douro River cruise, you might be interested in spending the time in Lisbon as sandralist recommends, taking a day trip to Evora and spending a day out on the coast in Cascais.

If you are interested in food and wine, there is an abundance of it to be found in and around Lisbon. West and north of the city, the Lisboa wine region was until recently known as Estremadura. The wine region Península de Setúbal lies across the estuary of the River Tagus directly south of Lisbon. DOC Do Tejo on either side of the River Tagus (Tejo in Portuguese). The Alentejo wine region, just to the east of Lisbon, covers about a third of Portugal.

For your time in Porto, you may want to read: 72 hours in Portugal’s Historic Port City

donaldsc

I guess that I was a bit confusing. What I am asking about on the Portugal message is the 7 days or so after our Douro River cruise which we will spend in Portugal.

DON