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6 Nights in Portugal

Advice needed. We get off a cruise in Lisbon on May 8 and we have 6 nights to travel independently in Portugal. We'll spend 3 nights in Lisbon with side trips to Sintra and possibly Obidos. After that (or before), should we go north to Porto and the Douro River, or south to Algarve area?
Our travel priorities? Pretty things: cities, coastline, towns. We don't spend a lot of time in museums.
We are in our 60s. Will be traveling by train. What would you do?

Posted by
6113 posts

Head to the Douro or Porto - dramatic scenery or an interesting city respectively. You will lose half a day in transit each time you move, so unless you want to spend longer getting there than being there, just pick one.

The weather then maybe OK in the Algarve, but it may still be a little mixed. The sea will certainly be too cold to swim. The Algarve has been over-developed in the past 20 years and if you want to see more of the pretty "real" Portugal, stay north.

Posted by
1654 posts

I agree with the previous poster - head to Porto. It's a lovely city and day trips to the Douro valley are very nice. If you only have three nights in Lisbon, I might just do a trip to Sintra and skip Obidos. My first trip to Lisbon, I spent 5 nights and didn't scratch the surface.. That said, Sintra is definitely worth your time.

I've used Cool Tour Lisbon and Porto for day trips to Sintra and the Douro valley. They are very reasonable and do great day tours.

Posted by
7181 posts

There is more than you can see in Portugal in six days. I agree that the Algarve is missable, unless you brought your golf clubs and suntan lotion. Without a car (as you wrote) Porto is a good idea. If you don't care about wine or Port, maybe Coimbra. I would try to get to Obidos. Note that Sintra is a very rich full-day daytrip, but with "business hours" and an hour train ride. You should select your stops there in advance if you can. We like public gardens, and were pleased with the vast one at Monserrate there. However, the palace is empty and perhaps the least important interior in Sintra-"available for your corporate entertaining" and weddings.

Lisbon is a spread-out city, so it takes some time to hit the big museums and sights. If there's a charge for the Lisbon port excursion, I would consider skipping it. Our cab from to the Santa Apolonia cruise port from Bairro Alto was about 20 Euros on the meter, and I think he ran it up. Well worth it with our luggage. I read that Lisbon has legal metered and legal unmetered cabs in my guidebook.

By the way, when we were in Lisbon fifteen years ago, we took an extremely commercial daytrip on a bus, which would be scorned by many posters here. The bus left by 8AM, and didn't get back to Lisbon until about 8PM. We went to Obidos, Fatima, Alcobaça, and maybe one more place. I loved not having to navigate a car, and we found it a good use of time. By that, I mean, if you're not a pilgrim with faith, how much "free time" do you need at Fatima? 30 minutes on foot was plenty.

Portugal has some nice Roman sites, but I think a car is needed.

Posted by
2788 posts

You might want to check out RS Portugal Tour - you can see its itinerary elsewhere on this web site - to see where he takes his tour members which happens to end up in Porto. I have registered to take that tour beginning May 13 and am looking forward to see more of Portugal than we saw on RS Spain & Portugal Tour. Happy Travels

Posted by
1878 posts

My wife and I stayed five nights (four full days) in Lisbon on our 2008 trip, and we would have liked another day. The top tier destinations for us (though we really liked them all) were Lisbon, Sintra, Nazare, Obidos. Tier 1.5 would be Evora, and tier two Porto and Coimbra. Tomar also rates a 1.5 to a 2. If you are already in Lisbon, and only in the country for six days, no way should you side track to Porto or think about Duoro or Algarve, unless there is some special reason not stated above. I would recommend two nights in Sintra when you get off the ship, followed by four nights in Lisbon with a day trip to Obidos. There are also a number of seaside towns near Lisbon that are easy day trips, such as Cascais or Estoril. We stayed in the former for a night on our 2008 trip, nice town but would recommend it only as a day trip as the hotels are very poor value. Our first visit to Lisbon was as the point of departure for our 1999 honeymoon cruise. We also visited Cascais and Sintra very briefly on a bus tour.

Posted by
35 posts

Thanks, everyone, for your advice! Very helpful.