Day trips from Leiria and Caldas da Rainha

From the silver coast area there are several lovely places to visit but they aren’t easily accessible by public transport.
Places of note are Alcobaca, Batalha, Tomar, Coimbra and Obidos. Coimbra is the only one on the main train line. I have no idea how much the others would be from where you are staying via Bolt/Uber. But, you might check them out to see if they interest you.

kathyrn, I was hoping you'd see this since you obviously know the area. From my research so far, it looks like the bus system is fairly good so I could probably use a combination of bus and Bolt/Uber. I'll most likely do a day trip to Coimbra from Porto. I hadn't considered Batalha, but will look into that as well.

Is a day trip to Ericeira realistic from Sintra? I'll be there several days as well and just came across a more detailed look at Ericeira last night that intrigued me.

Yes, Ericeira is doable as a day trip from Sintra. I’ve done Ericeira a couple of times from Cascais, which is a bit further. I forgot about including it in the list I sent earlier. It’s quite nice.

Glad you found the buses a better option. I’ve only done the local buses and very long distance ones.

Hi KRS
I live in the area and may confirm that you will not regret the time dedicated to it. I may help you with specific information and I have a site about my traveling experiences called Touristrips with a post with useful notes about the best places in Portugal. You may check it in Trips in Portugal.

We stayed in Caldas da Rainha for 10 days last year and found this town to be a great base to visit other towns. It has a very active bus and train station that kept us quite busy. One of the pluses was a daily market in a town square with very reasonable veggies, fruit and baked goods.