Hello! Planning our first trip to Portugal and arriving in Porto first week of November, and in Portugal for five days. Any tips of the best itinerary to plan for? Not sure if it's worth trying to get to Lisbon or use the time to do day trips to Fatima, Nazare, Coimbra etc.? And also wondering if its worth renting a car. Thanks!
Posted by
Cascais, Portugal
1826 posts
With only five days, I would suggest staying Porto with day trips, if you want. A day trip to the Douro is worth it. Matosinhos is a nice bus ride out of the city for lovely fish cooked outside on grills. Aveiro is a fairly short train ride. And, Guimarães and Braga are doable as day trips. All that said, Porto is a lovely city in which to wander, take a water taxi over to Gaia and visit the port lodges, etc.
Posted by
OP
2 posts
Thank you so much Kathryn! I'll definitely have a look at the places you've suggested :-)
Posted by
Tel Aviv
15794 posts
I spent a day in Coimbra and enjoyed it a lot. I followed the RS city walk, spent a lot of time at the university, then got a ticket for a fado performance, recommended near the end of the RS walk. If you go, you'll save time by taking Uber or taxi to the Porto-Campanha station and from/to the Coimbra-B station. Waiting for the local train isn't worth the time. Taxis are cheap, Uber even more so.
You may have fall colors in the Douro Valley. Good day trip anyway.
Another possibility is a day trip to Aveiro by train. It's about a 15 minute walk from the train station to the old city center, lots of art deco architecture and the "mandatory" "gondola" tour (about an hour and interesting).
Posted by
9 posts
If you're only in Portugal for 5 days staying in Porto and doing some day trips would probably be the best use of your time. When we were there for 4 day in the spring we split our time with 1.5 days of sightseeing, 1.5 days of port tastings and a tour of the Douro. If we had an extra day we probably would have done a day trip to Coimbra.
For sightseeing, I'd recommend seeing the Bolsa Palace, the Sao Bento train station and to just spend time wandering the city. If you're interested in a bit of an adventure you can look into climbing the Ponte da Arrábida Bridge.
The Duoro was well worth the visit, amazing landscape, and wine. We did a tour through AirBnb, Wine Venture & Boat in Douro, it was amazing. I would recommend it and I've seen others on here recommend it as well.
If you're thinking of visiting the Port Cave I would recommend Cálem, Porto Augusto's and Vasques De Carvalho. Cálem is large and touristy but it has a good tour and museum which is good for learning the history of Port and the Duoro. Augusto's is small with a quick, intimate and funny tour which we enjoyed. It was also a good deal, I think 5 euro with a coupon they were handing out. Our favorite cave by far was Vasques De Carvalho a small even boutique Port Cave. Their Port was our favourite of the trip and we enjoyed tasting it in the small courtyard.