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From Porto - Two Weeks what to do?

Hi All!

My partner and I are on day 36 of 62, on a grand western European tour and we'd appreciate some sage advice on where to go next!

Our route through present: Paris, Lyon, Nice, Monaco, Barcelona, Madrid, Granada, Sevilla, Nazare, and now in Lisboa. From here we go to Porto for 6 days. After that, we have no locked-in plans, other than returning to Paris by June 27 for a few more days before heading home to Oregon. June 12-27 are up for grabs and we're in a complete decision deadlock on what to do!

We were originally going to work our way over to San Sebastien, through Bordeaux, the Loire Valley, and back to Paris. We love France, but have opted to scrap that idea and instead use our time to broaden our horizons. So here we are.

We have active Eurail passes (btw, what a disappointing hassle that's been! But that'll be for another post), but have taken a few flights to cut down on travel time.

We're discussing a few options:

  1. Prague to Paris by Rail - some combination of Prague, Vienna, Munich, Switzerland, back to Paris.

Neither of us have been over to this neck of the woods. We've been researching quite a bit and like this plan tentatively, but are having a hard time locking down a rail path which is time efficient and hits the most sights. Suggestions are very much so welcomed! Additional pro: it appears we can book train tickets online and Eurail completely covers costs.

  1. Britain/Ireland Roadtrip - Fly to London, rent a car/Turo, work our way up to Edinburgh, ferry over to North Ireland, down one of the Irish coasts, hop over to Wales, back to London, train to Paris.

I love Scotland and England. My partner hasn't been and I think the country-side roadtrip experience would serve as a nice juxtaposition to our "Cathedrals & Tapas" rail sprint. We rented a car out of Lisbon to go up to Nazare for 3-days (hit Tomar, Fatima, Bathala, Alcobaca, and Obidos) and had a blast driving around.

  1. More time in Portugal and Spain, hit spots we missed, work our way back to Paris.

I fell in love with Spain. My partner loves Portugal so far. We've knocked out the majority of the must-see sights in both and could take the time to chill out and absorb the culture more. We've discussed heading South, to Lagos and Salema, hitting San Sebastien per the original plan, working in some other Spanish cities within reason. Pro: we're here and we like it. Cons: rail travel has been a pain here (we've had to book tickets in person at varying costs on top of our Eurail. Many grump-inspiring lines.), we can't really figure out a good travel path. Would love some ideas. Also of note, we only had 2 days in Madrid and beyond tapas, Guernica, and 8 hrs at the Prado, we don't really feel like we "get" Madrid. Might be worth some more time.

  1. Fly to Rome, travel by rail to a combination of Florence/Venice/Milano/Genoa/Switzerland back to Paris.

This is the homerun idea, but we're hoping to do a big Italy and Greece trip in a few years, so we haven't invested much research time into this. We could probably be swayed by a solid case though! My concern is that we've been on a tourist sprint for the last month and we're frankly a little burnt out. I think Italy deserves our full rejuvenated attention later.

If you made it thus far, thank you! We're really in a decision tangle on this one. Would love some thoughts and ideas!

Posted by
7595 posts

Explore the Douro River Valley.
We did a wonderful 7 day river cruise on that river and loved it.

If you don't want to cruise, take the train, that runs along the north side of the river. There are some great places (vineyards, etc.) and very scenic. Stay at Regua and Pinhao.

Posted by
2267 posts

I’m a big fan of Madrid—the thriving heart of modern Spain and Europe’s second largest city. Too many tourists treat like a checklist of a couple major sights and completely miss out on the city’s richness. Feel free to PM for a lowdown.

Otherwise, heading north from Portugal is an entirely different Spain—the whole of the Cantabrian coast from Galicia to Donostia is worthy of exploring (the extremes trump the middle, for time management). But there isn’t an easy way to skin that cat, transportation-wise.

Posted by
446 posts

If you feel like further immersion in Portugal the Alentejo region is scenic and interesting as well as the western side of the country. Also check out the schist villages, Coimbra, Porto and north.

Posted by
1090 posts

If you are set on not flying over to Italy, then I personally would reconsider the San Sebastián scrapping. Unless you’ve already been there before. And Galicia certainly deserves some attention and this would be the time of year to do it. I would work along that route personally. Drive from Porto, up through Galicia and then over to San Sebastián, etc.

Posted by
11053 posts

We went to Galicia, Spain from Porto and picked up a Spanish rental car. We visited Baiona, O Grove, Santiago de Compostela, Leon, Oviedo, Comillas, Bilbao, Santiago de Compostela, Hondarribia and continued into the French Basque region.