Lisbon & Porto as Home Bases?

We felt Coimbra was worth a couple nights while Aveiro and Óbidos were worth only a couple hours each.

You don't say time of year.

Sintra can be very busy. We managed it by staying overnight there so we could arrive Pena at 9am. You'd have to leave Lisbon quite early.

Planning for Obidos was when we realized we wanted to rent a car. In comparison to a private car, bus and train was very inefficient. We spent 3-4 hours tops.

We did Evora by bus, though we stayed overnight.

Coimbra is nice and probably hard to cover much of in a day trip.

We loved Douro. You can do it by daytrip from Porto by taking a tour, or using a train to Pinhao. At that point you'd be very limited in terms of where you could visit.

We tend to not love day trips as we feel we end up spending so much time in transit.

I have not been to Porto but we had a great time in Lisbon and the surrounding area. We arrived by cruise ship and spent 3 nights in Lisbon proper then took the train to Sintra and stayed there for 2 nights. From Sintra we had planned to take the bus to Cascais (a nice little beach town) but found Uber so inexpensive in Portugal that we just used Uber to get to Cascais. We spent 2 nights in Cascais, and then took the train (only an hour and very scenic) back to the Belem area of Lisbon and stayed there for 2 nights. It made a very nice loop trip with really great variety. No great distances to travel but each place was very different from the other in a good way. With another day or so I would have added Evora and Obidos. Really liked the relaxed pace and being there in the evenings. There was plenty to do in each town.

Sorry - we will be in Portugal October 6-17
Good points about the travel time. I'm starting to remember why I originally thought we would rent a car.

Back to the planning board!
Thanks for the input!!!

Like I said, we loved the Douro, but we did it by car. Gail recommended Guimarães and Braga, which are amazing, and lend themselves more to day trips from Porto and are well served by train/bus.

To simplify our itinerary greatly, we went to Sintra immediately by train from the Lisbon airport. We stayed two days in Sintra and then picked up a car and did Obdidos, the monastery towns (stayed in Batalha), Nazare, then to Coimbra and Douro River and up to Braga for a few nights where we did Guimarães on a day trip. We turned in our car in Braga and took the train to Porto. After time in Porto, we went to Evora and ended in Lisbon. I left a few bits out, but that's basically it.

We had over 3 weeks. Honestly, with 10 days, I think you may be on to something with basing in Lisbon and Porto, but with few, if any day trips out of town. Its just that your days are so limited.

We were supposed to take this trip last year, then my husband needed surgery. In my initial planning, we were renting a car. I thought I might be able to save that expense and have 2-3 bases. But, I'm starting to realize why I originally thought to have a car. Keep the ideas coming! I'm going to read your trip report GeoffB!

You certainly do not need car in Lisbon or in Porto or near Sintra.

If you do rent car, please research all headsup caveats in ghis forum and elsewhere ro zvpud unpleasant surprises

Picking up car in Lisbon, can make stops at Obidos and Nazare with overnight in Coimbra (24 hour stop)

Then drive to Douro Valley (another overnight 24 hour stop) return car in Porto.

You can also look into hiring car+driver for Lisbon to Porto all day trip with short stops in obidos and Nazare and longish stop in Coimbra.

@kennyd what does zvpud mean?
I've driven in Italy many times, not afraid of having a car.....just didn't want to worry about parking, rental costs, etc. But, I'm thinking of renting just for a small portion of the trip.