Last minute trip to Portugal
 

For various reasons we are late at booking a trip for late June, early July, just DH and I.

I know we would like to go to Lisbon, Sintra, and Porto. We have a max of 10 days with travel time, is there something else we can add such as Algarve? Is there enough time?

Sintra can be done as a day trip from Lisbon. You could take the train north from Lisbon and stop off in Coimbra (don't miss the Roman ruins at Conimbriga). Fly into Lisbon and out of Porto.

The Algarve is in the wrong direction, and may already be overrun with tourists by the end of June. Or you could visit somewhere like Navare on the Atlantic coast instead of Coimbra if beach time is important to you.

If you're set on going to Porto, you should skip the Algarve as it's completely in the other direction. I would do Cascais instead and you can also daytrip to Sintra from there or even better, visit it on your way up to Porto.
We LOVED Cascais.

There's some great stops between Porto and Lisbon. Here's what we did several years ago: http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...l-portugal.cfm

Thanks so much for the info!!! Going to read up on these stops!

Jes28,
You would go to Cascais instead of what? The Algarve?

Cascais is very close to Lisbon - in fact we stayed there and trained into Lisbon - frequent, cheap trains - Belem is in-between. I liked Cascais as it was much "gentler" than Lisbon. many restuarants. We stayed at the Hotel Grand Real Italia - something like that - and it was wonderful and a great value compared to what a similar hotel here (US) would cost. You can daytrip from Cascais to Sintra altho it is not as convenient, connections not as frequent. You go by bus, not train. The bus goes along the coast - the scenery was IMO, other worldly - like the moors in England.

We enjoyed combining some "sun worship" with our sightseeing and Cascais was a good base for that. There is a small beach but the hotel pool was gorgeous!

I think with 10 days, I'd choose to go either north to Porto or south to the Algarve, not try to fit in 3 destinations.