My boyfriend and I plan to travel by train in Portugal in June Do we need to book in advance, or can we buy our tickets at the station?
How early should we plan on arriving at the train station?
These are the trains we plan to take:
Lisbon Entrecampos to Algarve (Tunes)
Algarve (Tunes) to Coimbra B
Coimbra B to Porto ( Vila Nova De Gaia-Devesas)
Porto ( Vila Nova De Gaia-Devesas) to Lisbon (Santa Apolonia)
I’d suggest booking your train tickets now, if you’re interested in some savings, as you may still find discounted ( promo) tickets.
You can easily book your tickets online on the Portugal Railway website here:cp.pt
You may also be interested in reading this excellent website; seat61.com
Wishing you a wonderful trip!
I booked tickets as I went along in Portugal - I booked nothing in advance for maximum flexibility. Unlike in other European countries, even the fast AP trains are not that expensive booked at the last minute. They are certainly cheaper if booked in advance but not with the extreme discounts you get in say France or Italy.
The trains in Portugal worked well for me, but many trains do not go directly to the city centers. E.g. in Coimbra and Porto, you need to connect to the smaller city center trains. But some local trains may be direct. I found that from Coimbra to Porto, I could take a local train from Coimbra "A" (the city center station) to Porto without the change at Coimbra B. It was a slower train with more stops, but I avoided one of the connections. (Still had to connect in Porto.) And honestly, the local trains I rode on were not very full, whereas the high speed trains I took in Portugal were pretty full.
Here's the official trains website for Portugal. They have a phone app too which I found very helpful, if you will have a smart phone with you.
You will save about half if you book up to two weeks ahead. However, as noted, trains are very reasonable if you want to just wing it. I usually book ahead if possible so I can get seats I want.
I believe you wrote previously that one of you is 60+. There are discounts for over 60, deeper ones for over 65.
One additional thing to mention about train tickets in Portugal - if you bought your ticket online, you need to show your passport on the train. If you have a paper ticket, no ID needed. I took a day trip and didn't bring my passport with me and got yelled at by a train conductor. My fault but it ended up being easy to cancel the online ticket for my return and get a refund. Then I bought a paper ticket and it ended up being the same price as the original ticket I got a refund for.
