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Pre-Tour Options for March 2023 RS Portugal Tour

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My wife and I are signed up for the late March RS Portugal tour and are in the process of evaluating our options for a 7-8 days of pre-tour sightseeing, which we would do on our own. The options we have considered so far include:

  • Extended Lisbon and/or Porto sightseeing-the tour begins in Lisbon (3 nights) and ends in Porto (2 nights).
  • Algarve
  • Azores
  • Madeira
  • Seville and/or Andalucia
  • Madrid
  • Barcelona and/or Catalunya

In the past, we have enjoyed a more relaxing pre-tour visit because it allows us to adjust to the new time zone so we are ready for the higher energy of the tour itself-we used this approach with the RS Greece tour by spending a week on Naxos (mostly hiking and sightseeing, not sunbathing), so we were ready to go by the time we met the group in Athens. We followed a similar approach for a previous southern England visit by starting in Bath and ending in London, when we had more energy and were fully acclimated to the time zone change. Having said that, we are not opposed to a "city break" style pre-tour since we could spend the entire time in a single location and forgo a rental car. Any comments or suggestions on these or other options for our pre-tour activity would be much appreciated.

Posted by
834 posts

Personally, I'd leave all of Spain for another time. Get into the Portugal vibe before starting your tour. In March, the Algarve will be chilly and pretty dull, I'd skip it. I love both the Azores and Madeira, but with only a couple days I'd stick to Madeira. It will be chilly, though - probably in the 50's. There's plenty to see. There is plenty to see in the Azores too, but you'd have to island hop. It would be a bit warmer, though.

I think you're best off by simply adding a few days to either Lisbon or Porto. Goodness knows there are a million things to do in both cities. Or you could day-trip, too. From Lisbon, Evora is one of my favorites, Great food and wine, cork, history. What's not to like? From Porto, consider Aveiro, Braganca, or Guimaraes. You really can't go wrong with Portugal.

Posted by
92 posts

I’m taking my second trip to Portugal this fall and from Porto, I’m also going to head up to Galicia, Spain for a few days. Might be something to look into’

Posted by
11609 posts

We loved the Minho area of Portugal, between Porto and Galicia, Spain. Save Spain for it’s own trip. We based in historic Guimares , first capital of Portugal, and toured this area including seaside Viana do Castelo and Braga. This is a favorite area of Portugal for many travelers.

Posted by
90 posts

We're just back from RS Portugal and we bookended the tour with extra days - four in Lisbon and five in Porto. Had heard great things (in general) about Porto so we gave it an extra day, but in retrospect, we preferred Lisbon.

Lisbon highlights before the tour:
---day trip to Sintra. We did a guided tour but can be done "a la carte". The Pena Palace really is a must see (wish Rick included this in the Portugal tour)
---food tour. Who knew that me, who doesn't eat fish, would like cod/bacalhau! And they have a unique way of cooking their sausages. The Mozambique stop was a delicious eye-opener; we went back there on our own.

Porto highlights after the tour:
---Braga & Guimaraes guided tour. Bom Jesus is really something to see, and Guimaraes is a lovely town to visit.
---port tasting across the river. It was so good we stayed for a picnic lunch!
---re-walked Rick's walking tours as it was raining when we did it with the RS group.

Posted by
3 posts

Thanks to all for the feedback-lots of great suggestions! I think Spain is now off the table with regard to the Portugal trip-clearly there is more than enough to keep us busy if we spend our time in Portugal.

Question: would moving our dates farther into April help any with our pre- and post-tour plans? We still have the option of switching to a different tour start date, which would presumably give us better weather but also potentially higher costs (and numbers of fellow tourists). Holy Week is now at the end of our tour (which ends on Palm Sunday), but there is another tour with openings that starts during Holy Week (Easter falls on the first of 2 nights in Obidos), so it might be interesting to be on the tour during Holy Week. I generally try to avoid festival events when I am planning a DIY trip, but since we would be on a tour, I could instead leave the logistical challenges of Holy Week to the capable Rick Steves crew to handle!

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