Reconsidering Itinerary - Go To Portugal?

So much to see and so little time! I might be tempted to drop Belgium and fly Lisbon to Paris then take the train to Lille, so this adds another 2 nights for Portugal. Otherwise you end with too many one day sightseeing options.

Porto can be seen in 1-2 days depending on how much detail you want to see, particularly if you fly in early.

I would investigate hiring a car. Coimbra (university town with plenty of history) warrants a 2 night stay. Further south, Tomar, Alcobaca, Batalha and Santarem are all lovely towns that could be covered by a 2-3 night stay. Have a quick couple of hours in Obidos on the way to Lisbon, where I would spend 4 nights. By train, I would have 3 nights in Porto, 2 in Coimbra and 5 in Lisbon, taking a day trip to Sintra or Cascais or Evora.

It hardly seems it’s been that long, but our trip will have been 20 years ago, next month. We didn’t use public transportation outside of Lisbon, and maybe the transportation situation is different now, 20 years later. We had less time than you will, but after Lisbon, we rented a car and traveled close to the coast over a few days as far up as Obidos, before turning inland. Our days/nights in and around Evora were probably the highlights of the trip, and the car was necessary. We’ve not made it yet to Porto, and want to make it back to Portugal. Maybe rental cars will be cheaper than the rates you’re getting for Western France?

If you go south in Europe in November you can gain up to an hour more of daylight. London sunset approx 4 pm. Porto approx 5 pm. Check time zones to be acurate. Have you traveled in Spain? It could match your interests that you mentioned.

Thanks everyone. We would arrive in Portugal on October 2 or 3, departing on October 14 or 15. I’ve been to Barcelona only and hubby has never been to Spain. We are interested in Portugal for this trip. I’ll look into rental car prices in Portugal. We are paying a small fortune for our car in Ireland and a little better, but still a lot for our car in Scotland. We revised our itinerary in England when we saw how much a rental would be for our planned time in the Cotswolds and worked around it. That’s not possible for Ireland and a week in Scotland.

If you have a good 10+ days in Portugal you may need a car, esp. outside of Lisbon and Porto (from these two cities you can do day or overnight trips using public transport). the other sites would benefit from a car.

on second thoughts, you may be able wing it without....
Lisbon (5 days including Belem (lisbon suburb), Sintra (palaces etc), Cascais (beach town), day trip (or overnight) from Lisbon to Evora)
Porto and surrounding (2-4 days - take day trip to the vineyards - private tour or group)
if you have bandwidth for Algarve, fly to Faro and back to Lisbon.
10+ days are filled.

After living here without a car for six plus years, you can definitely fill ten days without one! And, right now the prices are amazingly high here, too.

Porto, Coimbra, Lisbon, and Evora can all be done easily without a car. The trains are easy and inexpensive. Day trips from Porto including the Douro, Braga and, maybe Guimarães can be done on the train. Stopping in Coimbra for a couple of night between the two big cities is easy. From Lisbon, Sintra, Cascais and Evora are all quite different but worth your time. Spending a couple of nights in Evora would be my suggestion.

And, yes, you could see the smaller places with a car, but you don’t have to have one to fill your days with lovely towns and things to see and do.

Hi Andrea. Portugal is a great idea. Listen to everything Kathryn said. I spent 25 days in Portugal, 10 with a car. For the eastern part of the country (which is great) you do need a car. But for the western side, the trains are fast, comfortable and inexpensive, and there are senior discounts. For day trips, Uber or taxi wasn't expensive and it was much faster than bus or train.

The hardest part of planning will be choosing between all the wonderful options.

Thanks for all the advice. I’m still hoping to make our time in France work. I’ve invested a lot of time planning this portion of the trip and it meshes better with our time before and after. If we don’t go to Portugal this time, the excellent information will be very helpful for when we do go in the future.