How Should We Split Our Time?

How much time to spend in a place is a guess at best if you’ve never been before.

Select places you think you’d like to visit, what you want to see in each, then how much time you think you’ll need to see each place. That will give you an estimate. Invariably you’ll spend longer at some sites and less at others. Only visit places of interest to you and not just because somebody says you should.

It never fails on our trips that we could have cut a night from one place since it didn’t meet our expectations and added it to another. Unfortunately, you don’t know what you don’t know especially if the towns are small and off the beaten path.

For the Portugal portion of our 2023 trip we spent 1 night in Óbidos, 2 nights in each Penalva Do Castelo and Nazaré, 3 nights in each Porto and Coimbra, and 4 nights in Tomar. We had a rental car, took day trips, and stopped at sites between lodging locations.

I spent 18N in Portugal:

8N Lisbon
4N Coimbra
6N Porto

With 15N, I would take 1 night from each city and still be perfectly happy.

Thanks Jaime & CW.

CW, I was thinking along those lines knowing that we will do day trips. Is there enough to do in Coimbra for two days?

Is there enough to do in Coimbra for two days?

I split my visit to the university across 2 days and went inside the cathedral and the Machado Museum. That would have been a lot for just 1 day, but may have been doable.

Plus I loved the botanic gardens with its sculptures and walking along the river. I walked across the river to the Monastery but didn't go in because of renovations at the time.

I easily did that all in 3 days and could have stepped up the pace to do it in 2. My trip report (linked in my comment above) has the details for my visit to all 3 cities, including my day trips from Lisbon and Porto.

Andrea, you will be traveling to my favorite country. Portugal is a real gem and I hope you enjoy it as well as I. You and Jim are experienced travelers (you’ve been to more places than me, for sure) and I’m pretty confident you will have a good time. I have traveled to Portugal twice. Once in 2015 that was a combined Spain and Portugal trip with emphasis on Spain and an extended trip in 2023 with a stopover in Iceland. Both trips were in the early Fall, similar to what you have planned. Here is a breakdown of my timing on both trips:

2015 September 14-20 (6 nights)
9/14-17 Algarve (from Seville SP): relaxing beach time after many cities/museums
9/17-20 Lisbon: Tram 28, Oceanario, Castillo Sao Jorje, Mercado Da Ribeira, funicular, Santa Justa elevator, fado dinner performance, Belem:Tore, Monument to Discoverers and Monastery, coach museum

2023 October 2-20 (18 nights)
10/2-8 Lisbon: tile museum, Cacilas fishing village, Museum of Art and Architecture (MAAT), Belem:Monument to the Discoverers, Day tour to Fatima, Nazare, Obidos (Lisbon Riders), Day Tour to Sintra, Peña Palace, Quinta da Regularia (Get Your Guide), Cascais day trip to meet Forum member

10/8-12 Coimbra: explored city and University w Botanical Gardens, fado performance, Conimbriga Roman city, Go Walks Historical walking tour by student, Machado de Castro (Roman ruins)

10/13-15 Porto: rainy day RS Walk, Bolhao market, 2nd half of RS Walk, explored waterfront and river taxi to Gaia for Port lodges, funicular

10/15-18 Douro valley: relaxing stay at Quinta, went birding after drizzle cleared, short riverboat ride and lunch in Pinhao

10/19 Flight Porto to Frankfurt

We spent 5 days in Lisbon and 3 days in Porto plus one day driving between. Our first choice was to take a train but we're glad we decided on a car instead. The highlight of the driving day was Obidos. Here's my Trip Report if you're interested. https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/trip-reports/trip-report-part-1-hills-and-castles-portugal

Thank you for your thoughts everyone. I have a lot to think about.