Porto and Lisbon w/o car

Baixa for Lisbon which is close to the Rossio train station (Sintra day trip) and the green and blue metro/subway lines that will easily get you around Lisbon. It's a flat area compared to the many hills of Lisbon.

Santa Apolónia is one of the train stations that goes to Porto. From Baixa, take the blue metro line, less than 10 minutes.

Lisbon and Porto have great public transportation and even if you could drive a car, I would not recommend one in those locations. So you don't need to be by a train station.

My partner and I spent 10 nights total in Portugal in 2023, without a car. 4 nights in both Porto and Lisbon (with another 2 nights in Coimbra). Our trip report might have some information useful to your planning: https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/trip-reports/trip-report-portugal-aug-sep-porto-coimbra-lisbon-then-to-spain

Barbara
Bolt ride share is very affordable in Portugal. With 7 people you could share 1 or 2 vehicles (we were a group 6 in one vehicle) and the average price per person is usually less than metro/bus. You get door to door service, with no walking, stairs, transfers or waiting. We even took a bolt between Lisbon and Sintra and beat the first admission crowds trying to get to the Pena Palace. Have fun.

For Lisbon the Baixa is the best area for you, make sure it's Baixa and not an adjacent such as Baixa Chiado which is on a steep hill.

Lisbon Metro is good, site with system map, lines are color coded.
https://www.metrolisboa.pt/en/

Porto is just as steep as Lisbon but more compact.
Porto Metro, download the system map, use the map to choose a location that has access to the Metro.
https://en.metrodoporto.pt/

Portugal train site map for local and intercity trains.
https://www.cp.pt/passageiros/en/how-to-travel

We did not have a car in either of those places. Porto for seven days may be too much, unless you have some bus or boat tours along the river scheduled. In fact, we went on at least two very commercial, very long-day, bus tours from Lisbon. I wanted to avoid navigation, and see multiple major out-of-town sites in one day. (We did rent a car to drive from Lisbon to Porto, making multiple short stops along the way, like Roman ruins and Knights Templar places.)

For Porto, I would pick accommodations by the São Bento train station. That station is in the heart of historic Porto. To get to Lisbon, you would take a 5 minute train ride to Campanha train station and then take one of the high speed trains to most likely Santa Apolonia.

Possible day trips from Porto, Braga and Guimarães, separate days. Both are very much worth the time to visit and the train departs from São Bento.

I stayed in the Ribeira area of Porto (by the river), but I don't mind the hills. I'm not sure if that neighborhood would be the best for your party depending on how you feel about walking up and down hills. I like Porto a lot, so 7 days would not be too much for me, especially since it's a good base for day trips. But everyone is different.

We are planning on spending 4-5 days each in Porto and Lisbon and are trying to figure out if a metro pass for public transportation makes sense in each location, or whether we should just plan on walking and using Bolt/Uber. If a pass makes sense, can anyone share how we should go about getting one?

rick.simon
As I noted above, we found using bolt to be cheaper and more convenient within the cities.
However, we did get a tap card in Lisbon (I cannot remember the name) and loaded it with sufficient funds to take the touristy tram 28 in Lisbon and to visit Belem. I would not buy the 24-hour pass (I think you would have to spend your whole day inside a bus or Metro to make it pay off), just the one to load up enough money to use.

Navegante Ocasional (formerly Viva Viagem) card for Lisbon. Just load some funds on it and tap and go. And when run out of funds, add some more to the card.

Hi!

For Porto, the best way to move with public transport is downloading the app Andante. You can validate with your phone in all buses and metro, and you will be charged for the cheapest. You will not use public transport very much, as the city center is very compact (although hilly), so card for 3 days, for instance, is not very usefull. There is the possibility of buying the card "Andante" and charge it with some trips, but the zone system is confusing.

For Lisbon I don't know by personal experience, but I heard that Viva card is very usefull.