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10 days in Portugal: a relaxed itinerary

Hello! My husband and I (we're in our 50s) are going to Portugal in late August/early September. We're flying into/out of Lisbon.
We know this will limit what we'll reasonably and comfortably see in Portugal but we've decided on this route to save money (roundtrip to Lisbon tickets are about half that of a flight to Lisbon and a flight back from Faro).

We'd love to experience culture, historical sites, beautiful scenery, a day at the beach, and something active like a hike.
We'll have a car. A few other important details: We want to limit our stay in Lisbon to 2.5 days. We don't drink (so no winery tours). And we're looking for a relaxed trip (i.e., we will drive to see different sites but want to avoid being in our car all the time). Based on my research and search in forums, a relaxed trip will likely mean we can't/won't visit both Porto and Algarve.

Thank you for your thoughts!

Posted by
2456 posts

I took a shore excursion from Porto to Braga which is in the Minho Region. It was late October and it was. a Sunday. It was peaceful. it is beautiful. There is. a lot to see and do.

I am attaching. a link to Braga and the Minho Region.

You might even wan to stay overnight in the area.

https://www.portugal.com/city/braga/

Posted by
4864 posts

I've included my Trip Report from our 10 day stay in Portugal in September. You may fund some valuable nuggets in it. https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/trip-reports/trip-report-part-1-hills-and-castles-portugal

I wouldn't bother with a car for the Lisbon portion, it'll be more trouble than it's worth. You could also make several daytrips to places like Sintra from Lisbon without a car, once again, parking may be a hassle with it. For a day at the beach you can take the train to Cascais from Lisbon for the day. The one day we needed a car was for a stop in Obidos on the way to Porto. We loved it there.

Posted by
2 posts

@Bostonphil17 - thank you for the suggestion on Braga. We did some quick research on it and it piqued our interest, especially my husband's. @Allan - wow, thanks for sharing your detailed itinerary. Chockfull of great details and ideas. We are adding Obidos to our itinerary!

Posted by
7496 posts

Locations in central Portugal are close together so you can get to many places in an hour our less. We visited a number of places while transiting between lodging locations. During our two weeks in Portugal last year (didn’t visit Lisbon) we based ourselves out of Penalva do Castelo and Tomar, taking day trips from them. We also had stays in Óbidos, Coimbra, and Nazaré. We did spend three nights in Porto, but took no day trips from it. There were a few places we had originally wanted to visit, but got burning out visiting religious sites by the time we reached Porto, so skipped them.

On our trip we rented a car from Madrid, went into Portugal, via Ciudad Rodrigo, for a couple weeks and returned to Madrid via a different route, Tui, Puebla de Sanabria, and La Granja.