Far-flung Tomar

We had a car when we visited in 2023 and we traveled north to south. If it was me, I’d try Evora - Óbidos - Nazaré - Tomar - Coimbra to see if public transportation schedules work better.

Going from Evora to Tomar seems out of the way if headed to Óbidos, especially since you pretty much need to pass Tomar when going to Coimbra.

if your guide book describes Tomar as far flung, and then suggests getting there on that sort of tour by public transport it would be two reasons to believe he's never been there!

With a car it's very accessible and only 3 miles from the main north -south highway which makes it easy from almost every other main location. Sadly it's very badly served by public transport, and that's made worse by neither the railway or bus network providing a decent map.

For the record, the railway station that serves Nazare is called Valado - Nazare - Alcobaca but don't get excited because the service is very limited unless you want to go to Coimbra.

I'm going to take a wild guess here and suggest that you are not being "beamed down" in Evora and "beamed up" from Coimbra and that Lisbon airport wioll be involved at some stage. In which case you visit Tomar as a diversion from the Coimbra-Lisbon train journey. With a fast train from Coimbra change at Entroncamento, Tomar-Lisbon does have a reasobale regional train service

As other have noted, Tomar is not a "far flung" destination! You can easily get to Tomar by direct train from Lisbon, and from/to Coimbra either by train with probably a change in Encontramento, or by bus. Connecting Tomar to Evora or Nazare or Obidos by public transport is the challenge. Much more feasible would be a day trip or overnight to Evora from Lisbon by train or bus; and a separate day (or overnight) from Lisbon to Obidos and/or Narzare by bus. I realize the backtracking to Lisbon is not ideal.

I remember trying to figure out some of these connections, including Caldas da Rainha, several years ago but deciding that it wasn't worth the effort for me with limited time. I went from Lisbon to Tomar to Porto. But I think there are possibilities if you can find the right bus routes.

I plan to travel next May, which I guess is off-season,

I don't think May would be considered "off season" anywhere anymore. Just don't be surprised to find crowds.

We did some of this in 2017, so there may be better connections now. We took public transit Lisbon to Tomar , with train was fairly straightforward. However when it came time to head from Tomar to Coimbra we struggled. I had been under the impression we could get a bus, but could not seem to get other than very early am. My recollection was that we took 2 trains with some slow connections.

The challenge then was that most seemed to connect in and out of Lisbon, so a bus from Evora to Tomar goes back to Lisbon and then back to Tomar.

We almost always choose public transit over a car, but in Portugal, my preference is a car for those towns.

Lisa's memory is correct. Bus north from Tomar is very sparse and not at good times. Two train are required to/from Coimbra, although a more comfortable connection can be made at Entroncamento - and you can at least travel at better times and have a reasonable choice!

Thanks for all your responses. Very helpful. As someone guessed, it seems like Rick himself hasn't been to Tomar until very recently. He posted a video saying it was his first time. But he was very positive about it.