glitter85

I need advice if my itinerary is “too ambitious” and I have a few questions to ask. My husband and I love hiking, history, ruins, cathedrals, church and food.

Here is my itinerary:

Dec 13th – Arrive Lisbon from San Francisco

Dec 13th to 16th – Lisbon

Dec 17th – Rent a car and drive to Sintra (Question: Which rental car company unlikely to scam me?)

Dec 17th to 19th – Sintra

Dec 20th to 22nd - Óbidos

Dec 23rd to 24th – Porto

Dec 25th to 26th - Peneda-Gerês National Park (Question 1: Is the national park open on Christmas day? Should I just stay 1 more day in Porto? Question 2: I tried to look at the website and I’m still not sure which trail for day hike – max 10 miles/16 km. Any suggestion?)

Dec 27th to 29th – Braga

Dec 30th to Jan 1st – Coimbra

Jan 2nd to Jan 4th – Evora

Jan 5th – Lisbon

Thank you/ Obrigada.

Michael

For car rentals use autoeurope or kemwel as brokers. They are sister companies with slightly different providers.

As for the trip, I would not insist on returning to Lisbon. A one-way rental might be in order, which is what we did on our first trip to Portugal, covering about the same area you are covering plus Santiago de Compostella in about the same time. Europcar, one of the agencies offered by the two borkers did not charge for a one-way rental. We started our trip in Porto and ended it in Lisbon. We missed Obidos that time around.

Don't count on visiting the national park in the middle of winter. A friend recalled being caught in a snowstorm around Easter time in northeastern Portugal.

Here's what we saw in northern Portugal: https://flic.kr/s/aHsjpXpD1k

thursdaysd

You neither need nor want a car for Sintra. Take the train from Lisbon.

Do not plan to overnight in Obidos, it is major tourist trap. Do it by bus as a day trip from Lisbon.

Why so much time in Braga? It makes a perfectly good day trip from Porto (by train), but what do you think you will be doing there? Spend more time in Coimbra instead.

Michael

Obidos could be the hub to visit Alcobaça, Batalha and Fatima. From the outside some of the smaller establishments in Obidos looked quite pleasant, and December might not be high season for the town anyway. To stay away from Obidos is like saying that one should never stay in a plus beau village, or in Bruges, admittedly a larger city, which some say is magical once the day trippers are gone.

thursdaysd

Friends of mine stayed there a couple of years back, despite a similar warning. They told me afterwards that they regretted it. (And there is more to see in Bruges.)

bdokeefe

Regarding Sintra, agree, you don't want a car. I've started 2 trips in Sintra, you can get there by Uber from Lisbon airport for 25E; another time I was alone and took the subway, then train.
FIrst time, after a few nights, I rented the car at the closest rental to Sintra I could find, it was a 6 Euro taxi ride from the square in front of the palace to .Eurocar rental office. Looks like there may be a Hertz closer. Second time, after 2 nights, we took the train into Lisbon for a few nights, then rented a car.

I thought Sintra was a nice spot to get over jet lag, and get a WOW factor, being among the palaces and having the castle towering over the town, the tiny downtown shop district; then the hustle/bustle of Lisbon.

Obidos was nice for a night, just so you can enjoy it after the daytrippers have left. Amazing to wander along the town walls with sun going down.

If you can work it in, visiting the Schist villages and Zezere glacier area are really worth it. It's a collection of small towns and villages, some high on hilltops with town walls, other the houses are built into the side of boulders, all different, and not many people around when we visited in late April.


Enjoy.

mlgb

I agree with the recommendation to not have a car in Sintra. There is virtually no parking. So you'll have to walk, or use taxis, or the tourist buses and hop on hop off vans to get to more distant places from your lodging.

If you stay in town, it's easy to walk to the National Palace and to Quinta da Regaleira.

Expect to find offices and restaurants closed or limited, if possible buy tickets in advance. Masks will be required nearly everywhere. You won't have audio tour equipment either, so download or consider a tour.

glitter85

Thanks everyone for your input and recommendation. My reasoning to rent a car leaving Lisbon because I plan to go to Museu do Ar while I'm in Sintra. Maybe it is best to go when I'm on the way to Óbidos with my rental car. My question now is is it easy to find a rental car in Sintra?

Michael

Autoeurope and Kemwel give you a choice of towns to pick up your car, depending on the agency you choose (Hertz, Europcar, etc.). But the train ride back to Lisbon is not that long, so you could go back to Lisbon to pick up your car. Last year we picked up our car from the Europcar office located within walking distance of the Marques de Pombal metro station (a couple of metro stops from the train station that services Sintra) and leaving going north was a cinch.

glitter85

Thank you for your information, Michael!

jeffergray

Of course, it all depends on what kind of pace you like to set – but if anything, it seems to me that you’re spending more time in many of these places than you need to.

The 3.5 days in Lisbon is fine. With regard to Sintra, it is readily doable or reachable by train from Rossio Station in downtown Lisbon – a 40-minute ride, plus another 10-15 minutes by bus from the train station to wherever you’re going. Once you get to Sintra, buses or taxis (or your feet) can get you around. So no need to rent a car for that part of your trip.

But I think you are right to plan on staying in Sintra, although only for two nights. Your days will be very short in December – you might well only have light from about 8:00 to 4:00 p.m. If you’re staying in Sintra, you can easily be in line when the doors open and be there for the last hour or so of the day. And Sintra is perhaps the worst spot for mass tourism in Portugal.

There is enough in Sintra to support two days there. If you picked up a car on your second day there, you could use it to go to Cascais, or Cabo da Roca, or to the pink rococo royal summer palace of Queluz in the Lisbon suburbs.

There are some things worth doing on the way from Sintra to Obidos. The massive palace/monastery of Mafra has to be seen to be believed; its construction costs went a long way towards bankrupting Portugal in the 2nd quarter of the 1700's, even with the discovery of gold and diamonds in Brazil. The church is massive, the library long and legendary but dusty-looking.

Since you like history, you might want to make a brief stop in Torres Vedras to see a strongpoint from the fortified lines behind which the Duke of Wellington stood off the French in 1808 during the Napoleonic Wars. The strongpoint of Sao Vicente is just north of the town, and is well-preserved and well-maintained (but also won’t take long to see). And Peniche, a peninsular walled town on the coast with a fortress that the Salazar regime used as a political prison, is just to the west of Obidos. The Communist party leader Alvaro Cunhal became something of a folk hero with a daring escape from there in 1960. (Too bad he was a thoroughgoing Stalinist.)

Obidos itself is charming, but quick to see. You can walk from the southern gate to the northern end in 20 minutes. I was able to complete Rick Steves’s walking tour in a little over an hour – and I take lots of photos and also toured its annual chocolate festival! So, seriously, I wouldn’t stay there for more than a night.

That gives you two extra days to play with (plus the one extra day from Sintra)! You might think about heading for Coimbra now, rather than being there over New Years’ when the university might be closed, and I suspect the students would mostly be gone. You could do a very productive day’s jaunt from Obidos to Coimbra with stops for the abbeys at Alcobaca and Batalha, and maybe the Roman ruins at Conimbriga about 15 miles south of Coimbra, along the way. (I sskipped the more modern Fatima, which is all 20th century.)

Alcobaca is massive, but an elegantly simply Cistercian foundation at its heart. Batalha has a big role in Portuguese history, both because it is a memorial to the against-the-odds Portuguese victory over the Spanish at Aljubarotta in 1385 that preserved Portuguese independence for two more centuries, and for the kings, queens, and princes who are buried there, including Prince Henry the Navigator. The vaulted dome over the royal tombs is stunning. And the unfinished (roofless) chapel at the back of the church is both architecturally dazzling and surpassingly weird – which is why you’ll see so many photos of it.

Conimbriga – a major Roman center for maybe six centuries – offers the following: well-preserved and impressive defensive walls erected when the Roman Empire began to crumble; three villas of wealthy Romans with remarkable mosaics and interesting floor plans; and an excellent and modern on-site museum. 60-90 minutes suffices for touring Conimbriga.

I would say a thorough tour of Coimbra’s attractions can be done in a day-and-a-half. If it’s possible to be there when classes are in session, do it! The students all wear these unisex Harry Potterish outfits of white shirts, black ties, black trousers or skirts, and black capes that are very picturesque. Don’t miss the Joanine Library, or the lovely university chapel, with beautiful azulejos. I also enjoyed the Museu Machado Castro, which sits on top of the massive remains of the building that once suppoorted the Roman forum (yes, you can walk through it). And the fortresslike Romanesque cathedral (Se Velha) and the Church of Santa Cruz are musts, along with a fado concert – either at the Café Santa Cruz or at Fado ao Centro, on a street that leads downhill past the old cathedral.

I didn’t go north of Coimbra, but the palace and forest preserve of Bussaco are supoised to be well worth a visit, and perhaps an overnight stay. It was a monastery with a carefully curated collection of trees in its walled park, and the site of a battle during the Napoleonic Wars to boot.

Your itinerary doesn’t mention Tomar – a massive and memorable Templar complex that’s east of Alcobaca. The Templar castle of Almourol, on a small island in the Tagus/Tejo to the south and east of Tomar, is another legendary Portugul highlight. I did these two on my way from Coimbra to Marvao, a small walled town on a high hogback ridge near the Spanish border. It isn’t mobbed by tourists the way Obidos is, and it has one of those unforgettable end-of-the-world feelings about it – like Sagres in southern Portugal, or Monemvasia in Greece. I loved it, and also the nearby town of Castelo da Vide, which once had a major Jewish community. And there’s a well-preserved Roman/medieval bridge nearby too, at Portagem.

From Marvao – two nights, tops -- I drove down to Evora with a stop at Elvas to see its aqueduct and incredibly elaborate 17th century defenses. There’s also a palace of Portugal’s second main royal line, the Braganzas, at Vila Vicosa. You can actually stay overnight in a pousada right next to it.

I loved Evora. But three nights is probably a night more than you need. It’s even more compact than Coimbra. If you can, don’t miss doing a tour of some of the neolithic sites in the countryside a few miles out of town with Ebora Megalithica – Mario is a wonderful guide.

If you look for my Photographic Portuugal Trip Report – which is still a work in progress – you can find photos of many of these places. And I have photo albums of Tomar, Marvao, and Evora posted on Flickr.

Melnq8

Fabulous information jeffergray! I've copied and pasted into my Portugal file. We had to cancel our trip to Portugal this past April/May, but will refer to your suggestions when we reschedule.

HappyTrvlr

Do not stay overnight in Obidos. We stayed there two nights and could have seen it all in two hours. It exists for tourism. Cutesy. The one thing that helped was that we stayed in the Pousada, a castle, with a wonderful dining room. But it was chaotic trying to find a parking place.
We chose Obidos as a base to visit Alcobaça which we loved and also for Batalha, which we didn’t care for as much.
I would take a night from Sintra, add it to Coimbra.
Take a night from Peneda-Geres NP and and add it to Porto.
Our favorite area of Portugal was the Minho region. We stayed in Guimares. You will be in Braga so can easily spend a day in Guimares, Portugal’s first capital city. Viana do Castelo is worth a visit too.
I was confused by the way you listed the time allotted for each location. Listing nights is easier to understand For example, Dec.17th to 19th Sintra. Do you leave on Dec. 17th?

jeffergray

In case it might be helpful to future travelers, I have added links to my photo albums on Flickr for the Templar church/monastery at Tomar and the Templar castle at Almourol, as well as Marvao & Castelo da Vide near the Spanish border:

Flickr Slideshows (Photostreams)