Hi. We were going to rent a car and drive from Lisbon to Ferragudo, but perhaps a train is easier with 2 kids?

And what about from Ferragudo to Guimaraes?

Any thoughts?

Hi, Jenzoe,

If you want to stick with public transportation, I think bus would be better than train.

Ferragudo has no train station -- here is a very good schematic map of the Portuguese train system. http://www.cp.pt/cp/displayPage.do?v...007b01a8c0RCRD

This suggests you'd have to get over to Faro, either on a regional train that goes near Ferragudo or by bus. Based on my quick search on the train website, the Faro to Guimaraes trip involves a change in Lisbon. Leaves Faro at 1:20 pm, arrives Guimaraes 9:40 pm. Cost about 55 euros.

So, if it were me, I'd go with the car rental. I think that in general, any trip to Portugal that involves visits outside that major north south line is going to be a lot more relaxing and fun with a rental car. I think you will definitely want a rental car while in the Algarve, and one in Guimaraes and the north anyway, so you will only need to add on a few more days to the total rental, and you'll only have one pick up and one drop off to deal with. Are you flying out of Lisbon?

If you want to check out the bus options, try this website:
http://www.rede-expressos.pt/default.aspx

Sounds like your itinerary is shaping up. I think you'll love Guimaraes and that area. Laurie

I recommend that you rent a car. i can't imagine gettings kids and luggage and nd off the trains, even if you pack lightly. A car will give you better flexibility too.

Shoot. That is not good news... I thought we could catch a train in Portimao and somewhere it looked like we could get to guimaraes on the train, too...

I don't see us packing a 5 month old and a 4.5 year old in a car... the train they can walk around. Shoot. This has been the hardest trip to plan, for some reason. Lots of conflicting information.

Any thoughts? I think we do need to take a train...

Just to clarify -- you can do it by train, it just might not be the quickest or cheapest way. Going down, you would take the train from Lisbon to Faro and then you would transfer to the regional train to Portimao Faro to Portimao is about 1 hr 20 minutes). On the trip to Guimaraes, do the same thing in reverse to Lisbon and then transfer to a train to Guimaraes.

Hope this helps. Laurie

You are awesome. What I was just thinking was maybe to take the Faro Porto flight on Ryanair? The only problem is that gets us in pretty late to Guimaraes, but it is a shorter day of travel.