Ideas please for Portugal

Obidos is a wonderful small walled village or Nazare is a beautiful beach town.
Ck them out. I would suggest the Douro Valley but it is 5oo far from the other high pts of Portugal.

Obidos is worth an hour or two but quite touristy so would not recommend it for a base.. Consider Evora, Coimbra and Douro River area.

Hello candi,

I agree with suki... in my opinion, one of the best places to base yourself is Coimbra and then head east to places like Piódão and hike in that area - beautiful landscape ;)
If you like wineries, you should also consider a base in Porto - friendly people, great gastronomy, beautiful historic centre (UNESCO World Heritage) and so on... after exploring Porto, you could take a train/boat tour to Douro Valley and visit at least one of the many wineries in the region... you could even spend the night in a hotel in this area.

Enjoy Portugal ;)

We went to Portugal for our honeymoon in 2010. One of our favorite places we visited was in Palmela, not very far outside of Lisbon. Palmela itself is a very small town, and we stayed here: http://www.pousadasofportugal.com/pousadas/palmela/. It is a former convent surrounded by a medieval castle. The hotel included an excellent large breakfast. Our room overlooked the countryside. The town has a few restaurants (and the hotel has an excellent one too). There was a fun wine bar/institute in the town square where I recall paying near one euro for an excellent glass of local wine. I believe it was this http://www.rotavinhospsetubal.com/?lang=EN. It is also really close to Setubal, a larger, working class city. Setubal sits at the mouth of the Sado River, which has a resident population of dolphins. We went on a catamaran dolphin watch, which was awesome https://www.vertigemazul.com/. Setubal had some cool restaurants overlooking the harbor where the fishing boats came in. Palmela is also close to the beaches at Troia, and again, is a very short ride into Lisbon. I would highly recommend it.

Steve gave you very good tips. If you choose them, visit also Sesimbra, and eat the best fresh fish in Portugal (ok, among others). Another suggestion, however, would be Tomar, just search for this small and very typical city. A good base to explore other places like "ilha do Lombo" (Lombo´s Island, in a river), Constância, Abrantes, Almourol (Almourol castle, another island just with a castle), etc.

Go to Coimbra for a night. Great historic town and incredible Roman ruins a short bus ride away. Then spend at least 2 nights in Porto. Beautiful city. Great market. Port houses are awesome. Do tour or 2 then hit some of the small ones. Ribeira do Porto hotel is great.

If you will not be renting a car, Porto might be your best bet. While it is touristy, it’s large enough to not be overrun at many times during the year. From there you can visit the Douro valley, Guimaraes, Braga, Espinho, Aveiro and the beach areas closer to Porto like Foz and Matosinhos. You could stay a night or two in one of the towns along the Douro for hiking, wineries, etc. Also the port cellars in Gaia (across the Douro in Porto) are great fun with some of them having regular wine if you aren’t fans of port.

Óbidos is not connected well by public transport and is extremely touristy. Coimbra is a lovely town but, public transport out of town would be sketchy.

What about spending a few days in Sao Miguel in the Azores. Depending on when you are going you can fly from Lisbon to Ponta Del Gada, spend 3 or 4 days in on of the most beautiful places I've been (very comparable to Maui) and catch a flight back to NYC. I promise you that it will be worth it!!