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Porto and North possibly including Pontevedra and Santiago de Compestela.

Posted by (Twin Cities of MN) on

We will have a car for the Duoro valley and then plan to drive north for Braga, Vianna do Castelo and possibly more TBD. We are considering a foray into Spain for the coastline and Pontevedra and Santiago Compestela. Would appreciate any thoughts in terms of the logistics and whether we should just spend more time in the very north of Portugal. We do have 3+ weeks and are not spending any time south of Lisbon. We are travel mid April into May.

We will spend some time tasting port and wine in the Duoro Valley, any recommendations appreciated. Also, is three nights in Porto enough? We will take the train from Porto back to Lisbon and will spend at least 5 nights in Lisbon before flying home.

Posted by
27122 posts

I haven't been to Portugal recently enough to be useful on that score, but Pontevedra and especiall Santiago de Compostela are both worth visiting. There's more to see in SdeC, as you might expect. Other interesting spots in that part of Spain:

  • Tui: Small border town (not on the coast) with a small, cute historic area.
  • Combarro: Cute, touristy little coastal spot.
  • Cambados: Less cutesy, less touristy town on the coast.

Don't plan to stop in Vigo unless you must. I found it an undistinguished city with little interesting architecture. Not a bad place, but there are many better.

I really enjoyed A Coruna and Betanzos, but they're farther north than SdeC so probably beyond the scope of this trip.

Posted by
11159 posts

We dropped our Portuguese rental car off in Porto and hired a driver to take us across the border to get a Spanish rental car.( We weren’t returning to Portugal) We drove to Baiona and stayed at the waterfront Parador there. This is a popular resort town. Next we drove north through the pretty Rias Baixas to O Grove, another wonderful stop. Then we drove to Santiago de Compostela and spent several nights in the historic Parador on the Plaza in front of the Cathedral. We could watch the pilgrims streaming into the Plaza to end their journeys. Very moving experience.
We also visited Comillas and other interesting towns on our way to the Basque region.

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