10 day trip to Portugal in January

Your Portugal trip plan sounds almost perfect. Will you be jet lagged/tired from the US flight and then right away get into a rental car and drive? It’s something I would probably not do but YMMV. Otherwise, I think your travel plan sounds great for January.

Criden, also, there are many trip reports by Forum members that may be helpful in giving you tips about activities, tours, food/drink and accommodations. Also Rick Steve’s’ guide for Portugal is what I mainly used in devising my own two trips to Portugal. Libraries in Florida will probably have the guides to borrow or browse this website and view some of Ricks videos to get ideas about what to do in each location.

Happy travels to you and your wife

https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/trip-reports

Thank you for your suggestions. Combing through the advice here is one of the major ways I’ve devised this itinerary.

I’m comfortable with driving after an overnight flight. We figure Evora is close enough, and we can chill there for a few days.

Also considering day trips or stops in Aviero and Obidos if timing and weather work, but not wedded to them.

Based on the advice I’ve received here and elsewhere, I’m revising the 10 day itinerary as follows:

*pick up a rental car at LIS very early on arrival day (I’ve driven throughout Spain and Italy), drive to Evora for two days,

*then north to Coimbra for two nights, with one full day

*Then north to Porto, for two full days. We axed Douro valley because we’ve seen plenty of barren vineyards in January

*Then south to Lisbon, possibly stopping in Obidos for a few hours.

*Then 4-5 days in Lisbon, with day trips to Sintra and Cascais.

Skipping Algarve because we read it’s quiet in the winter. Don’t need beach (we live in FL). Understand what weather forecasts are for the rest of the itinerary. We expect to pay for tours of each place we visit.

How does this look. Thoughts and Suggestions?

The drive from Lisbon to Evora is easy and about 1.5 hours. Óbidos and Aveiro are worth a couple hours each.

Not knowing what you enjoy seeing, en route from Evora to Coimbra, Almourol Castle makes a nice stop. The castle was built by the Knights Templars and one takes a boat to get to it. The boat is a couple Euros per person round trip, cash only. The castle is a 30 minutes drive from Tomar where the Order of Christ (Knights Templar in Portugal) made its headquarters at Tomar’s castle and Convent of Christ. As convents go, the Convent of Christ is one of the more impressive ones I’ve been to.

Thanks for your kind reply. We’ve been thinking about Aveiro too. Maybe en route from Porto.

I agree with Jameelsabio. Almoural Castle is interesting and not many people go there. Tomar and the Knights Templar monastery is beautiful!