Duoro and Sintra - Is it worth overnighting or will day trips do?

We did Sintra as a day trip by train from Lisbon and had no desire to stay overnight there.

I recently returned from Lisbon. I spent four nights there and it was not enough. I wish that it could have been five or six nights.

A day trip to Sintra should be sufficient.

11 nights is not very long and hotel changes are a time waster. I would definitely suggest more nights in Porto and Lisbon.

Where do you fly in and out? Flying open jaw, say, into Porto and out of Lisbon would be the best. Flying in and out of one city means that you waste a day doubling back.

If it were me, I would fly in and spend four nights in Porto, one night in Pinhao and six nights in Lisbon with a day trip to Sintra and Belem.

We did a day trip to Pinhao in September and I found the round trip on the slow train with no air conditioning to be exhausting, especially the late afternoon evening train back to Porto. FYI, you see the same scenery from the train, the cheap 90 minute boat cruise in Pinhao or the 15 minute taxi ride up to the miradouro. Make sure you book your winery tour in advance. Other than that, there's not much else to do in Pinhao. Your hotel looks very nice. If you stay the one night, you can rest up from your train ride there. The following day, you can then bite the bullet and take the trains (5.5 hours) down to Lisbon.

Visiting Sintra in one day is doable. I would avoid the hotel change and keep some flexibility to choose a nice weather day for Sintra which involves a lot of outside walking.

We will also be in Portugal next September. After much reading and researching I have decided on this itinerary for our group of 4:
Porto - 3 nights
Tomar - 4 nights with day trips to Obidos, Coimbra, Fatima.
Lisbon - 5, maybe 6 nights with day trip to Sintra, Belem, and Evora (if we stay the extra night)
We will pick up the car when leaving Porto, use it in Tomar. Drop off in Lisbon. There are a few other places we can drive to around Tomar if need be.
As others have stated, we do not like to move hotels too much and prefer at least 3 nights in a place.
Have fun convincing your wife and planning.

The need to change hotels in Lisbon to move to a hotel in Sintra. I would think that a one day tour leaving and returning to Lisbon would suffice without having to change hotels?

We did Sintra as a day trip from Lisbon about a week ago and, for us, it was enough. I don't know what you gain by being there overnight, but I'm sure plenty of folks do that and are happy they did. We were happy we just did the day trip, and as I posted elsewhere, I probably would have been fine skipping Sintra altogether. But, if you added the 2 Sintra nights to your 3 Lisbon nights, you could easily head out to Sintra early in the morning on the train (get the tickets first if possible as there will be a line that morning), enjoy what bits you want to see (Moorish Castle was nice, Pena Palace was a chore), and be home to Lisbon for a delicious meal at any of their tasty restaurants. Then use the other days to explore Lisbon and nearby (like Belem) and save several hours checking in and checking out.
I too dislike checking in/out/in/out from hotels if I can avoid it, and the Sintra add-on seems easy enough to avoid by staying in Lisbon and using the quick train.

Are you flying R/T to Lisbon or into Lisbon and out of Porto?

I spent two nights in Sintra and enjoyed staying there. I went straight from the airport to Sintra. I enjoyed my stay there and it was a nice place to start my trip. If you are flying round trip from Lisbon, I think it makes sense to split up your nights between the two with one at the beginning and the other at the end of the trip. However, if you are flying into Lisbon and home from elsewhere, I would probably change to 5 nights in Lisbon with a daytrip to Sintra.

The Vintage House Hotel is lovely and I really enjoyed staying there for a night on a RS tour. However, I’d probably reduce that to 2 nights and add another night to Lisbon.

I have a slightly different comment about Sintra.

I think whether you stay overnight in Sintra or not could partly depend on if you like walking as a mode to explore.

We love walking and from the point of alighting at the Sintra train station, we walked everywhere. We walked to Pena Palace, to Moorish Castle, to old historical center, meandered some more, and walked back to the train station.

If you intend to walk all around Sintra, an overnight stay in Sintra could be fun. We like walking because to us, just going to sites isn't a highlight; walking to explore and absorb as we move from one site to another is something we absolutely enjoy. Given that, an overnight stay could be well worth it.

If you're the type of traveller that doesn't enjoy walking hills (or doesn't enjoy walking much) and much prefer the type of touring that is about the sites themselves, then you'll likely be taking ground transportation in Sintra. In that case, an overnight stay in Sintra may not be worth it.

We actually discovered we would have wanted to stay overnight in Sintra, but we didn't plan for that so we just did a day trip.

I almost didn’t visit Sintra, because I had read horror stories about the crowds. But a friend loved it, so I added it to our trip. We stayed 2 nights, which allowed us to visit sites first thing in the morning and in the late afternoon. This helped us avoid the worst of the crowds. We absolutely loved it and were very glad we visited.

We stayed at Quinta Velha in the Casa da Burra house. We enjoyed a swim in their pool with a distant view of the ocean. It was removed from the crowds and a lovely stay.

I would skip the 2 nights in Sintra and tack those on to your nights in Lisbon. I wish we had stayed longer in Lisbon! Sintra is an easy day trip via public transit from Lisbon so I personally do not think you would need to stay overnight there, especially for 2 nights.

I almost didn’t visit Sintra, because I had read horror stories about the crowds. But a friend loved it, so I added it to our trip. We stayed 2 nights, which allowed us to visit sites first thing in the morning and in the late afternoon. This helped us avoid the worst of the crowds. We absolutely loved it and were very glad we visited.

We stayed at Quinta Velha in the Casa da Burra house. We enjoyed a swim in their pool with a distant view of the ocean. It was removed from the crowds and a lovely stay.

That sounds like a really lovely idea! I agree with starting as early as one can handle. The tip about late afternoon site visits is great too! I think Sintra is a really lovely place, especially or maybe particularly, if one enjoys walking a lot and do not mind hills. We walked all throughout Sintra and didn't take any transportation other than to get to the town. I think exploring Sintra this way was the most enjoyable to me.

Muriel, We also enjoyed walking a lot, exploring the grounds of Monserrate and Quinta de Regaliera, a visit to Chateau d’Edla on the Pena Palace grounds, walking between Pena and the Moorish Castle and down the Villa Sassetti trail into Sintra. I think it would be difficult to see all the sights on a day trip.

John, a gentleman named MaiTaiTom has a fantastic trip report on Portugal, which you can google. He felt 3 days in the Douro was a day too long. We talked to 2 couples from CA who did the boat trip to the Douro from Porto. They thought most of the ride was incredibly dull until you got to the Douro. They ended up taking an Uber back to Porto to avoid doubling the trip.

We stayed two nights in Sintra and loved it. There are a lot of sites to see and yes, there is a lot of walking, very pleasant walking I might add, and we enjoyed it.

I think that three nights in the Duoro Valley is too many. You can visit there as a day trip from Porto, either by train or with a driver. You mentioned going by boat from Porto, but that would be a long boring trip. I don't think that any buses go to Pinhão. Add those three nights onto Lisbon and Porto; there's so much to do in both. Lots of day trips to all sorts of interesting places.

We visited Sintra as a day trip from Lisbon with a private driver. He made it very interesting and easy to do.

I've only got 6 days in Portugal in March, going to and from Lisbon. I was originally going to hop on a train and head to Porto for 2 nights as soon as I got there, but with more research, decided to spend the first 2 nights in Sintra instead. As someone mentioned, I'm looking forward to exploring as soon as day light hits and I can wander the town in the evening since the days are shorter in March. I really like walking/hiking and being outdoors in nature and Sintra looks amazing and unique. I'm sure Lisbon will be lovely, but it is a city, so the feel will be quite different, so it might be wise to think about what you prefer.

To be honest, I'm already thinking about planning another trip to Portugal for a longer period of time so I can see other places I've been discovering in my research for this trip!