7 days in Portugal - Lisbon and Porto

We spent three nights at NH Porto Jardim. It’s a newer hotel and we picked it because it has its own parking garage and we had a rental car. We liked the hotel and its location. We walked everywhere. If you needed to do laundry there’s a self-service laundromat about a 5 minutes walk away.

In Porto, we stayed near the Mercado do Bolhao and in Lisbon we stayed near the Time Out Market. We rented a three bedroom apartment. In both cities, walking distances are short, but changes in elevation can be severe.

thank you! Looking forward to our visit!

Day trips from Lisbon: Sintra, Cascais, Évora.

Day trips from Porto: Braga, Guimarães, Aveiro.

I wrote a trip report that has some info on Lisbon area public transit and photos of Braga that might be helpful if you want to check it out

https://www.fodors.com/community/europe/extended-trip-to-portugal-1711933/

In terms of where to stay:

We were also first time visitors to Lisbon and Porto just this past week! Transportation in Lisbon is really quite easy for tourists to navigate. We stayed at the Easy Hotel which is near the Marques de Pompal square/metro station. https://www.easyhotel.com/hotels/portugal/lisbon/lisbon . While in many guidebooks where we stayed is sometimes described as away from the centre of activities, it really did not feel that way because:
1. it is only a 20 minute walk to the heart of bustling activity, or
2. a much quicker and very short metro ride of just about 2 stops or to Restauradores stop which is already in the heart of busy, or another stop to Baixa Chiado.

Cost of the hotel was also both inexpensive and the standard is much much better than what we can typically get in the US. We paid somewhere around $80/night for a double room and it’s clean, very modern. If you’re in the US, you’ll know that these days for $80 in the US you can expect somewhat dirty and even poorly kept hotels/motels. This is not the case for Easy Hotel and probably not the case for many other hotels in Lisbon at this price range.

No breakfast is included, but there is an attached cafe called something like Rosa Dosca (sp?) which offers drinks and pastries for reasonable price; cash only though.

In Porto, we stayed at the Moov Hotel in central Porto which is at a similar quality though just a little pricier. https://hotelmoov.com/en/hotels/porto-en/moov-hotel-porto-centro/ . You can book the room with or without breakfast. You can also purchase breakfast separately per day without needing to decide ahead of time. Cost right now is 12.50 Euros and I would actually NOT recommend it. We looked at the breakfast buffet and for that cost, it was not worth it, and if you step outside and walk a block or so, you can get to a number of pasterias (pastery/bakery shops) that can offer you a much wider range of food and drinks for a much cheaper price, MUCH MUCH cheaper price. The only advantage for the Moov hotel breakfast, that I can see, is if you don’t want to get all dressed up and ready to head out for the day but rather just wake up, go down for breakfast, and return to your room to prep for the day.

I was actually mildly surprised (and disappointed) at the breakfast buffet offerings for 12.50 Euros. In decades past, I visited places like Frankfurt, Amsterdam, and hotels I stayed in offered very filling and wide variety of food for breakfast buffet. The buffet at Moov Hotel was, frankly, very much like what you would get at an American hotel like La Quinta, or Motel 6 (something like that), where you get some cold pastries, pancakes from a pancake machine, and some American style cold cereal. That is not the kind of European hotel breakfast I have experienced before. The difference with the buffet at Moov vs. typical American chain hotel is that the pasteries looked a little better, there was ham and cheese slices offered that was not prepackaged, but other than that it really looked like a boring American hotel breakfast.

Thanks Muriel! Appreciate your recommendations!

Just back from Porto and Lisbon. I loved the Douro Valley wine tours we booked through Viator. It was an all day trip with 2 wine tours, lunch and a river cruise. Highlight of my time in Porto !