My boyfriend and I plan on going to Portugal for 2 weeks in May (beginning in Porto and Returning Home from Lisbon).

I set 3 days aside for Porto and 4 for Lisbon but have almost 8 days in between and I do not know how to fill it up.

I see renting a car for travel in between is best but I want to plan our time accordingly. Having lived in Spain & Italy myself I know (and sorry to say) some sites can feel repetitive in nature though they are all unique in history.

Any recommendations on must dos/sees or tips would be greatly appreciated!

I have only been to Lisbon and Sintra, so I can't help with other places. Four days for Lisbon is good. Are you interested in seeing Sintra? It is beautiful and has many different and interesting palaces and castles. I recommend either a day trip to Sintra, or you could spend 1 or 2 nights there, since it seems like you have the time. Other places I have read about, but have not visited, are Evora, Batalha and Alcobaca monasteries, Tomar, Coimbra, and Obidos. If you don't have guidebooks, I suggest buying 1 or 2 good guidebooks, such as Michelin Green Guide, Rough Guides, or Lonely Planet.

Do you need ideas on what to see in Lisbon?

For restaurants in Lisbon, I recommend Cervejaria Ramiro for delicious fresh seafood (recommended by the late Anthony Bourdain), Bonjardim Restaurante, and Time Out Market.

Get a guide and cover the area between Porto and Lisbon. The Michelin Green Guide is good for historical sights/sites.

To whet your appetite: https://flic.kr/s/aHsjqbGicw and https://flic.kr/s/aHsmEZob5f

We've stayed in Viseu and Guimaraes, and can recommend both for a 2-3 night stay. Both have plenty to do in town and the surrounding area. Guimaraes has numerous squares throughout the pedestrian zone and is great for wandering.

Obidos, we spent a night here, great city walls to walk on, but over run with day tourists.

We also spent 2 days exploring the Shist Villages, a collection of small towns built into the sides of rocks, inside castle walls, another with Roman bridges...this link has lots of information. We ran into almost no other tourists, and had the best time.

https://juliedawnfox.com/best-histor...s-in-portugal/


The Zezere valley and glacier are in the same area, beautiful mountain scenery.

You're doing good to look to places other than Porto, Lisbon, and the beaches. Lots of small towns out there. I've been twice now, and really enjoy the countryside. Take a paper map and just drive. On the way back plug in the gps. Never been disappointed.

I agree with Viseu and Guimaraes. We enjoyed both on our trip this past September. We did a day trip from Guimaraes to Braga & Bom Jesus and also to Mosteiro de Tibaes (really enjoyed this). Viseu has a lot of good street art. On another thread I recommended a couple of restaurants in Guimaraes and can recommend a couple in Viseu if you are interested. We also enjoyed Tomar and the Convento de Cristo and we stopped at the monastery of Batalha. I felt both of those were very different. Coimbra is also nice but seemed much more touristy than the other spots. On the way from Coimbra to Guimaraes we stopped at Igreja Matriz de Santa Maria de Valega which was very pretty.

Try to spend at least one night in the Douro Valley. It was the highlight of our trip to Portugal.

We did a similar trip, flying into Lisbon and out of Port last October. Our trip was just over 2 weeks.

We did an overnight trip to Sintra from Lisbon – really enjoyed the area. Quinta Regaleira is top on my list to visit, as well as the Moorish Castle. Easy to access by train from Lisbon. We stayed at the Sintra Bliss Hotel and were happy with the hotel and the location for an overnight stay. Use Uber to get around.

We did this all-day private tour to visit Tomar, Obidos, Batahla Monastery and Nazare. We really enjoyed our day

https://www.tripadvisor.ca/Attractio...District_.html

From Porto, we did a day trip to Pinhao in the Duoro Valley. If we had more time, we would have spent 2 days and 1 night there. The area around Pinhao is beautiful and many wineries to visit.

One other comment – Ryan Air has reasonably priced flights to Sao Miguel, an island in the Azores, from Porto and Lisbon. We flew there from Lisbon and then flew onto Porto after visiting. We visited because one person in our group has family in Sao Miguel. It is a relatively small island with lots to see. We rented a car and it was very easy to get around. Beautiful lakes formed by volcanoes, hot springs, a city, small towns, a beautiful shoreline around the island and even a pineapple plantation explore. We had a short visit, so we didn’t get to see a lot of the places we wanted to visit. I would love to return here for at least a 5-day visit. It is a beautiful island. We found accommodations to be very reasonably priced.

It's great that you've got eight days to work with! That's plenty of time to cover some of the other things north of Porto and the area between Porto and Lisbon in detail. However, you might also consider planning an itinerary that takes you out of the area just between Porto and Lisbon, however, and sweeps a bit more to the east -- perhaps by taking a day away from your time in Lisbon.

First, within the area between Porto and Lisbon, I would suggest the following:

- Coimbra, Portugal's version of Oxford, is a must-see. The University itself dates back to the 1200's, although the current buildings are 1500's and later. The main quadrangle, with its view over the Mondego River; the main university examination halls; a beautiful chapel with incredible azulejos; and the astonishing mid-18th century Library of Joao V (30+ feet in height of rich wood paneling covered in gilt) is unforgettable. I really enjoyed the Machado de Castro Museum, but it helps to like late medieval and Renaissance art; however, it's cafe has a great view of the old cathedral, lower town, and the Mondego, and the museum itself sits on top of the arcades that supported the forum of Roman Aeminium, which are amazing to wander through and explore. Coimbra is a great walking town if you get in the old town; you can go all over by foot. I stayed at the Ibis Hotel, which was excellent for that. It's also the northern center for performances of fado. It will take a full day, or maybe a day-and-a-quarter, to see what there is to see.

- Conimbriga: a set of Roman ruins about 15 miles south of Coimbra. Great site museum well -preserved walls and a couple of large villas that had elaborate mosaic floors.

- Bussaco: its maybe 20 miles north of Coimbra. It consists of an elaborate early 20th century hotel surrounded by a famous ancient forest enclosed in walls and with trails running through it. Additional bonus: a battle in the Napoleonic Wars took place there.

- Batalha: it's one the road between Coimbra and Nazare, just a few miles north of Alcobaca. Yes, it's a big abbey, with some really elegant touches (in the Founder's Chapel and the Unfinished Chapel) and several of the most famous Portuguese royals are buried there, including Joao I, Philippa of Lancaster, and Prince Henry the Navigator. The Unfinished Chapel is remarkable (both elegant and weird: it was left open to the sky) and not to be missed.

- Alcobaca: just a few more miles down the road from Batalha, its a vast but remarkably simple and elegant Cistercian abbey and church only about 6 or 7 miles from Nazare. It boasts the tombs of King Pedro I and Ines de Castro, Portugal's great star-crossed lovers.

- Nazare: beach town, fishing port less than 10 miles from Alcobaca. For when you start getting tired of the history and architecture stuff. Legendary for its huge waves, but the summer isn't the season for these.

- Obidos: very picturesque walled medieval town a short distance from the coast. Definitely worth a visit, although it can be mobbed with tourists. Consider staying overnight there, perhaps at the Josefa de Obidos Inn right outside the main gate, and then see it late in the day or first thing in the morning before the hordes descend. Don't miss the church converted into a bookstore.

- Peniche: a coastal town south of Obidos with a massive but grim fortress that is the jumping off point for the offshore islands known as the Berlengas.

- Mafra: a huge palace monastery. The massive church is amazing, and it has a very long and interesting library. You can see it in an hour, but the sheer scale of it and walking around the marble floors may exhaust you. Its great significance in Portuguese history is that its building costs bankrupted the country in the 1700's.

- Queluz: pretty-in-pink 18th century roccoco palace about 10 miles outside of Lisbon. Nice rooms, furniture, and gardens.

While all of the above will sound like a lot, the distances are so short (and some of these sights only take an hour or so to see), so you could do pretty much all of this in four-five days or so, including Coimbra.

- Sintra: it has enough sights to justify giving it a day-and-a half. Although easily reachable by train from Lisbon, it might be worth staying overnight there so you can enjoy it in the late afternoon and the next morning when it isn't thronged by tourists.

- Lisbon: I loved the Hotel Santa Justa, centrally located in Baixa, from which you can get all over the main part of the downtown area easily on foot. Two restaurant suggestions: Bastardo on the lower end of Rossio Square and a trendy and youth-oriented fish restaurant named Peixola on the Rua da Alecrim running south from Bairro Alto. Go take in the views from atop the Elevador Santa Justa early in the day -- I think it's open by 7:30. Otherwise, prepare yourself for lines. And there are great views in the late afternoon from the Castelo Sao Jorge and the Miardor Santa Lucia in the Alfama, but beware of pickpockets at the later p;lace. Don't take credit cards and bring as little money as possible. Keeping an eye on each other helps.

But if you have time to go east up the Tagus Valley, the complex of the Knights Templars at Tomar; the Templar castle at Almourol, on a small rocky island in the Tagus River; and the small towns of Castelo da Vide and Marvao over by the Spanish border would be well worth a visit. Marvao I found unforgettable, because of its height atop a rocky sierra; its castle and walls; its remoteness and utter quiet; and the fact that it isn't wholly given over to mass tourism like pretty Obidos is.

Finally, you might also think about visiting Evora in the Alentejo. It's a great place to go for about a day-and-a-half, but will also take a few hours to drive there and a few hours to get back.

I'll also post some links to some albums I posted on Flickr for some of these places.

Flickr Slideshows (Photostreams)