Pls Help - Struggling to Plan - London & Portugal

Lisbon is wonderful

In my opinion must do places are Belem and Sintra. I would suggest a half day as. minimum for each city but in actuality try for a full day for each place.

And do yourself a favor and read up on Lisbon, Sintra and Belem.

In London, a very good resting place is Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park.

By "resting" and "getting over jet lag" in London on your arrival day, you're basically giving away a day. Then, your plan is to go back to the airport the next day to fly to Portugal. After your arrival in London you will be tired, but since you're already at the airport, you could take the flight to Portugal on your arrival day. You will still have plenty of time in Lisbon to check into a hotel, get outdoors and walk, find local restaurants, etc.

Tell us your interests and your daughter's age (if she's a child), and we can suggest destinations.

Thank you bostonfil, Anita
My daughter is 27
We are all into outdoors, hiking, walking, history, food.
We generally follow Rick Steves forums, podcasts, guides when we travel.

We have family in London - so the idea is to drop our luggage - take only as much needed (carry on bag) for Portugal.
I do get your point though -- each day traveling is a day wasted.
Thx

I think the way you have split your time makes sense. Five nights is good for Lisbon including one day trip, and I agree Sintra is maybe the best one. I would say Belem is more a neighbourhood of Lisbon (it's on the city tram line).

If you like hiking/walking/history but don't have much time to go out of London I would suggest walking along the Thames Path. It goes from the Thames barrier all the way into the Cotswolds and past some very historic sites in outer London, including Hampton Court Palace, and continuing on into Windsor. I would also visit Hampstead Heath which is another great place for walking. Good luck with your planning.

Thank you Cat VH
I feel it will be best to stick to Lisbon for 5 nights and take a day trip to Sintra and Porto.
With the time we have, this seems to be the best option.

I would definitely not try to do Porto as a day trip from Lisbon.

But I would consider Porto rather than Lisbon. With five nights you could do a day trip to Coimbra or to Braga and Guimarães or to the Douro Valley (depending on your interests), and you could still have time to experience Porto.

I agree with Lane regarding Porto not being a day trip. Spend the 5 days either in Lisbon or Porto. Personally, I favor Porto, but I know others favor Lisbon. And just to add another option, there is Madeira, which is just gorgeous, where you could spend your 5 Portugal days and fly directly from London. I mention it since it would be a change from the city and your family are active (great hiking trails, easy or hard). You can stay in Funchal and rent a car for a couple of the days to drive around the island.

The little yellow trams in Lisbon are great fun if bone-rattling. The restored old tram which runs on a special tourist route is well worth doing.

As has been said, I’d go to Lisbon on Day 1 (I have a feeling there’s no direct flight from LHR to Porto( and get that bit of flying done.

Sad that you only have five days in Portugal. You don't have time to go north to Portugal and the amazing Douro River Valley.

Could you change your transatlantic flight to fly home from Lisbon so that you don’t have to fly back to SFO from London? (e.g., change to an open jaw SFO - LHR / LIS - SFO). If you are on United, they’ve eliminated change fees for most flights. If you are on BA, this probably wouldn’t work as I think they charge for changes. It is worth checking out.

I’d probably do something different if I had to return to London. I’d probably spend the 14th to 21st in London, then 5 nights in Portugal, then fly back to London for your last 2 nights. I just think it would be easier to get over jet lag in London if you didn’t have to get on a plane the day after arriving. I’d settle into London.

If you did want to do two cities in Portugal, you could do 3 nights in Lisbon, take the train to Porto, three nights in Porto and fly back to London from Porto. However, 5 nights in one place would be the better option in my opinion.

Thank you all - Laura, geovagriffith, BillS719, Lane, & Lynn .... so much - your feedback is very helpful.

I could not arrange to fly to Lisbon and fly back from London - we got the tickets through frequent flyer miles on Virgin Atlantic (through Delta) -- yes, they do work - but it took me many many years to accumulate so many miles (58K roundtrip from SFO + $260 per ticket).

After going through your feedback and discussing with my family, we decided to drop Portugal. We feel Portugal deserves separate trip by itself - hope we can do it next summer.

Now - plan is to devote 7 full days in London (incl family time) and divide the rest of 7 days between outside of London & Paris. Paris looks easier to travel to by Eurostar. Outside London, I can think of Cotswald - will need to rent a car - which will take some time getting used to driving on the left.