As some of you know by now, I've had to cancel a trip to China for this spring, and I quickly came up with Plan B with a trip to Spain and Portugal. Little did I know how tough it is to narrow a trip down to 3 weeks! I hear some of you snickering as you read this! And of course, we leave on March 31 for Spain, heading to Barcelona and Bilbao.

On Monday, April 14, we fly to Lisbon and will fly home from Porto on May 4. I've come up with a couple of itineraries, and would appreciate feedback and suggestions. I've made a few reservations (Lisbon, Porto, Douro Valley - thanks, Maribel!) but they are all cancellable if I rework the plan.

Itinerary #1
Sintra - 2/3 nights*
Lisbon - 4/5 nights*
(pick up car)
Evora - 2/3 nights*
Tomar - 3 nights
Coimbra - 2 nights
Douro Valley - 2 nights
Porto - 4 nights (Day trip to Guimares)
*If we do 2 nights in Sintra, we can do 5 nights in Lisbon OR apply it to Evora.

Itinerary #2
Lisbon - 5 nights (day trip to Sintra)
(get car)
Evora - 3
Obidos/Tomar - 3
Coimbra - 3
Douro Valley - 2
Porto -4

While I really like the idea of seeing a lot of different places, I also don't want to be moving all the time. The 2nd itinerary is a bit gentler that way, though I'm very aware how many people love staying in Sintra at night.

I'm also toying with the idea of doing this without a car as I'm not sure what driving into each town or city will be like. Is this doable without a car? Or, is driving relatively easy into places like Tomar or Coimbra? Are there smaller towns that would be easier to stay in with a car?

Finally, hotel recommendations for Coimbra and Tomar (or Obidos) would be much appreciated!

Whew, this planning thing can be exhausting!

First, I'm sorry to hear that your plans changed so suddenly.

I think you'll enjoy your time in Portugal. With 20 days, I think a car would be nice to have (but not until you leave Lisbon). I have found the driving to be not bad. The major roads are in excellent shape. In the towns you park them and walk until needed. Sometimes the worst part is getting into the city center, so why move the vehicle once you're there. Rent the smallest car that you can fit you and your luggage in, and get insurance for piece of mind. In Lisbon we picked up the car downtown on Avenue de Liberdade, which is a main street, and had no issues heading out of town. That saves heading back to airport. The other trip we grabbed the vehicle outside of SIntra.

The freedom to visit small towns, which have become my favorite thing, outweigh the cons of car rental.

Sintra- I have stayed the first nights of both my visits, it is a nice place to get over jet-lag. Understand your not wanting to move to often, and it is an easy train ride from Lisbon if you want to day trip. Public transportation easy to figure out in Lisbon.

Porto- I have read that traffic is bad in the city. I've flown out of Porto AIrport, just didn't stay in town. You might want to look at Guimaraes, which we really enjoyed, and use that as a base for a few nights. It's 45 minutes to the airport car rental return.

Evora looks great, it's on the list for trip 3 which is in November.

Tomar- we visited the Monastery and Aqueduct, both well worth checking out. We stayed in Viseu, and stopped at both those places on our 'jump day' from Lisbon.

There is a tour you can do of a series of old small towns, the Schist Villages. Amazing, and we were visiting in mid APril and had them to ourselves.

This web site is full of good info.

https://juliedawnfox.com/schist-vill...tral-portugal/

Thanks so much, bdokeefe, you’ve given me much to think about and Guimarães is a place I’ve been looking at as well.

We will most likely pick up a car after Lisbon; we end in Porto, and I plan to drop the car off before we stay there. But you’ve tempted me with adding Guimarães and now I will need to drop something because we can’t do it all, much as it sounds great.

We will be coming from Spain, so not needing to get over jet lag in Portugal. And I love the juliedawnfox website - so much good info!

Progol, because I know you prefer slower travel and a gentler trip, I recommend spending 5 nights in Lisbon. There is so much of interest in Lisbon, and it is a wonderful city for slowly wandering through neighborhoods and stopping at the miradouros to enjoy the views and have a drink or two. By spending 5 nights in Lisbon, you won't feel rushed.

However, if you can manage it, I would spend 2 or 3 nights in Sintra. We visited Sintra as a day trip from Lisbon because we were there at the end of a 3-week trip and didn't feel like checking in/out of hotels. But we did not see a lot of Sintra. We also booked a small bus tour, which we don't usually do, but for the sake of simplicity, we chose a bus tour for Sintra. We had time to visit Pena Palace, have a quick lunch, and then we drove to Cascais for a quick visit. There is much to see in Sintra, so I think a leisurely 2 or 3 night visit would be better. If you have the time, I also recommend seeing Cascais. We liked what little we saw, and commented that it would be nice to return and spend more time there.

We haven't been anywhere else yet in Portugal so I can't help you with any other places.

Thanks, KarenWoo, it’s so hard to choose! I will sit with it a while longer. I am torn between seeing some of the places that are less busy with tourists vs seeing the busiest. Too many places!

I would not split your Lisbon time. Sintra is easy enough to do on your own from Lisbon, no reason to take a tour. Definitely don't allocate a lot of time to Obidos, cute but tourist overload.

My Lisbon TR is very old, but may give you some ideas: Loving Lisbon I would add the design museum.

Thanks, thursdaysd. I’ve no intention to break up my time in Lisbon, but wondering whether to stay over in the beginning of my stay rather than a day trip. Many people seem to prefer staying there in the evening. I’m still not sure what to do.

I’ve also been trying to figure out if I can add Guimarães in to the itinerary. If I do, I definitely need to eliminate another stop. Another itinerary possibility - it has to add up to 20 nights! And at least one of the following needs to be eliminated.

Should I keep to Guimaraes as a day trip from Porto? Should I eliminate Sintra instead? What about Tomar or Coimbra? And are there better small cities towns to stay in with a car than the ones I’ve listed?

Sintra -2
Lisbon - 4/5
(pick up car)
Evora - 2/3
Tomar area - 3
Coimbra - area -2/3
Douro - 1
Guimares - 2
(drop off car)
Porto -3

I meant that I wouldn't stay in Sintra as well as Lisbon. I've never had a car in Portugal.

Got it, thursdaysd.
Many folks love Sintra when the vast number of tourists are gone. It’s a tossup.

to everyone:
Out of the following, which should I eliminate for a stopover?:
- Sintra, Guimares, Tomar, or Coimbra(area)?

One of them has to go as a stop. I can visit Sintra and Guimarães as day trips.

Do not eliminate Coimbra! (And make sure you see Conimbriga while you're there.)

If I had a car and the cash, I'd want to stay here: https://www.pousadasofportugal.com/p...-palace-hotel/ I did visit the grounds even without a car.

Ok, I know I've been saying you should stay overnight in Sintra, but since you do have the dilemma of needing to eliminate a place to stay overnight, Sintra could be that place. Sintra is definitely doable as a day trip from Lisbon, as thursdaysd recommends. And if you go on your own, not with a tour, you can see more places than we did. Depending on train schedules, you could see 2 or 3 places, have a quick lunch and maybe even have dinner there so you see it in the early evening after the daytrippers have left. The reason we had time to see only one palace is because we chose a 3/4 day tour because we wanted to return to Lisbon early to pack and have a nice dinner because we had an early morning flight the next day. So you can certainly do more in a day in Sintra than we did.

I know this isn't for most people, but we had a blast renting a little jeep from LAS tours. It is a 4 seat jeep body on 1970's mini cooper. Like driving a go cart. They also have 2 seater electric enclosed vehicles and are located a few minutes from the train station

Both have gps routes you follow, either to the castles or out to Cabo da Roca Lighthouse, with information given at the different stopping points. Makes it easy to view Monserate Palace or Convento dos Capuchas, along with Pena and Moorish Castle as they as so easy to park and squeeze into any space.


LAS rental

Have a great time on your trip. No matter where you wind up, if you get away from the heavily touristed areas, you'll really be taken care of. A few times we walked into restaurants where either we were the only guests, or there was one other table taken. Language barrier ensues. Once, the pots were just brought out for us to look at, any time we had the daily special, with drink and dessert, 8 euros. Always delicious, people so happy you stopped. Either slices of the cured pork, or shots of homemade brandy as a parting treat. Plus, every other town seems to have a castle, or something else to see that makes a stop worthwhile.

If you do stay in Guimaraes, head north up to Ponte De Lima, then Valenca, on border with Spain. We took the long slow way heading north, turning off the gps and following river to find old stone bridges. Ponte De Lima had a market going on, and it was neat to see the markers for being on the Camina route, and had walked the same bridge that pilgrims have walked for almost 1000 years? Pretty neat. What took a few hours to travel was only 50 minutes on the straight shot to Guimaraes. We stayed there 3 nights, right on Largo da Oliveira, and really enjoyed it.

thursdaysd, thanks for the pousada recommendation near Coimbra! Someone else suggested it so I’ll see if it will work for us.

KarenWoo, still in planning stage, but I’m leaning toward doing a day trip to Sintra and not an overnight. We are moving at a very slow pace, so I suspect we will keep it easy and not try to see too much.

bdokeefe, that is one cute vehicle! I’ll have to look into it! Your description of the drive north of Guimarães sounds lovely! If we have the energy....😉

FYI - here is my itinerary that I’ve ended up with after my own stressful planning! I think it will be good!

Lisbon - 5 nights( AirBnB just off Rua Garrett)
pick up car
Evora - 3 nights (Convento de Espenheiro - on points. Can cancel of too far out of town*)
Tomar - 3 (Airbnb)
Combra- 2 (Hotel Oslo) priority is to see ConimbrIga ruins)
Douro Valley -2 (Quinta De Marrocos)
Guimares - 2 (Pousada Mosteiro de Guimares)
Drop off car
Porto - 3 (Cocorico Luxury Guesthouse)

Question:
Should I cancel the convento and stay in the Evora Olive Hotel since it’s in the town itself? The very charming hotel (can’t find the name right now) that is highly recommended isn’t available.

If there is anything glaring, feel free to let me know, but I think this works nicely. We will do a day trip to Sintra, but that was a hard decision. I just wanted to include the other places more! I squeezed Guimares in after reading so much about it here.

And there are so many other places to visit! Before I began planning, I had no idea how much there was to see!

Looks good! If you want an alternative for Evora I can recommend this:

https://adcevora.com/

That’s the place whose name I couldn’t recall. Unfortunately, it doesn’t have availability. I would love to stay there but the middle date isn’t available. Any other recommendation?

Looks like the lovely port wine institute in Lisbon is still closed. Instead plan for a tour and a meal at Taylors in Porto. Bom Jardim in Lisbon is bare bones but has the best chicken.

I like the Museu do Oriente in Lisbon, which seems not to be on most people's lists. Also the relatively new Design Museum.

Thanks, thursdaysd!

Now that I have an itinerary, it’s about time I start figuring out what we’re actually going to do!

progol,
For lodging in Coimbra the Oslo in town will be a fine mid-range place with parking. We stayed at the pricey Quinta das Lagrimas but as a treat for my friend who wanted to use the pool and spa and have a special meal at their Arcadas restaurant.

For Evora, I would keep the Convento do Espinheiro even though it's outside of town because it's magnificent, will be memorable and has a great restaurant. Plus it's usually quite pricey so you have the advantage of using your points.
You can drive in to Evora and park in the large lots outside of the medieval walls, and Evora is easily walkable. We've done this on day trips from Estremoz.
Within the walls in Evora, the historic Pousada across from the Roman temple is highly atmospheric (but not an easy an "in/out"), the Mar d'Ar Aqueducto has the best location for easy garage parking and getting in and out on the ring road plus a very noted restaurant. The Evora Olive Hotel isn't as atmospheric, to my eyes.

For Porto, if you have an interest in a port lodge in Gaia (we've been to many), Taylor's has the best views by far, an easy "do it yourself" tour with excellent audio guide and with no need for reservations and the best terrace dining.

For Lisbon, under maitaitomi's hotel thread, I listed my favorite museums, if that helps.

3 nights in Tomar would be one too many for me. (We have a friend who built a house outside of town.)

I sent you a PM about the Sintra palaces.

Maribel,
Thank you so much!

I’ve decided to keep the Convento do Espinheiro because it does look so special, so I’m glad you confirmed that impression. It’s not that far from town, either, so I’m sure it will be memorable.


Thank you for the suggestion for Taylor’s - I’ll look into it. And I do have maitatom’s thread bookmarked!

Would you recommend that I take one of the nights from Tomar and add it to Coimbra?