Portugal...advice, tips, etc?

Two places that I enjoyed that were not in Rick Steves Portugal (which was otherwise very useful) were Santarem and Tomar. Santarem is an hour from Lisbon, and Tomar is an hour from Santarem (on the same train line, so two hours from Lisbon). In Santarem, I was the only visitor, or so it seemed. There were two wonderful churches, particularly the one with the floor-to-ceiling azulejos, which were the most beautiful I saw on my trip; this topped the other, more celebrated Santarem church, with the rose window (I don't have the names of these handy now). In Tomar, the thing I remember most wasn't particularly Portuguese; it was the museum of matchboxes. Fascinating. I do remember liking the town in general, and again, it wasn't overrun with tourists, to put it mildly. Sintra was very nice, even though it rained on my day there. I didn't like the Alfama in Lisbon. Walking around felt like slum tourism - looking at the poverty of the "quaint natives." I wasn't trying to be a voyeur, but I felt like one. After about 15 minutes, I had enough of feeling uncomfortable, and left. The Bairro Alto, on the other hand, was a great place, particularly at night. I didn't get to Evora, but want to for my next trip.

I would follow the Rick Steve's book, but skip the Algarve. We just did 2 weeks in Portugal and it was wonderful.

You don't say when you're going, how long you plan on staying in each location, or how you plan to get around. If your two weeks include travel time that leaves you 12 days for 4 locations. How many days do you plan to spend in Lisbon? There's quite a bit to see. In Belem area there's the Tower of Belem, Mosteiro dos Jeronimos, the Coaches Museum. In Lisbon itself there's the Castel, the Cathedral, and several churches and museums. You can also take the 30 minute train ride to Queluz to see the Palace which was modeled on Versailles. Do you plan spending more than one day in Sintra or just visiting as a day trip from Lisbon? I agree with a previous poster that Tomar and the Convento do Cristo is worth seeing and is an easy driving day from Lisbon. As for the Algarve, if you're driving it's a good place to stop on your way to Seville. We stay in Quarteira, a nice beach town, which is closer to the Spanish border than Salema. Again, if you're driving and staying in the area 3 days you can visit the small towns of the Algarve such as Salema and Tavira. There is so much to see in Portugal that is not covered in the RS book, but with less than two weeks you need to pick those sights that you're really interested in.

I'd pretty much skip the whole RS idea except for a couple of days in Lisbon and maybe three in the Algarve with one of those in the interior. Cape St Vincent, Lagos, and Quarteira gets you the best of the coast. The rest would go to Alentejo without spending a night in Evora (maybe one, at most).

Lisbon is great see museums, barrio alto, Belem , monument to age of discovery, Monastery of San Jerminos. Walk every where hopefully you are staying central. Sintra is gd also but only in dry weather. For me Algarve was weak as a coastal destination . I prefer the coastal south of Spain and the white hill towns along the way to Seville which is terrific.
You can bus it from s. Portugal to Seville if that interests you, very reasonable and a regular schedule. I mention this as car rental in Portugal to drop off in Spain will be very costly.

Obidos is a lovely, quaint little town within a hour of Lisbon. You could do it as a day trip or stay overnight. No one has mentioned the Gulbenkian Collection in Lisbon, a top notch collection of objet d'art of an early 20th century oil magnate. Highly recommended. I'm in accord with the lack of enthusiasm for the Algarve expressed by several other posters. If you're from WA, you've seen much more beautiful beaches. If you require a beach time, I've heard that Cascais is nice.

Thank you all so much for the great tips and advice. It will really help me plan out a tentative itiniery.

Portugal and Spain are not easily connected.. you will pay a huge drop off fee for a rental car, or endure an endless bus ride, or likely an expensive and/or inconvenient flight to get from Portugal to Seville. You may also find it a lot more expensive to fly home from Seville than Lisbon or Madrid. Seville is wonderful, but it's better to do it on separate trip (besides, it's a terrible shame to visit Seville and not Madrid, Cordoba, or Granada). Our 2008 Portugal trip started in Porto, ended in Lisbon. We also visited Coimbra, Nazare, Tomar, Marvao (daytrip), Evora, Cascais, Sintra. The only one that I would not recommend an overnight in, is Cascais better to visit as a day trip. I would recommend four full days in Lisbon a great place to just slow down and experience. Along with Madrid and Budapest, it's one of the most underrated cities in Europe. I also recommend two nights in Sintra absolutely one of the most magical small towns in all of Europe. Algarve those of us from the west coast have for the most part visited Hawaii in my experience European beaches are a relative disappointment.

I really loved Porto. A day trip by train to the magnificent Duroro Valley was an absolute highlight.

It depends on what you are looking for in your trip as to how you will like Salema or not. Salema was a welcome break in our trip to Spain and Portugal. It is a lovely, laid back little town. We hired a local with a small boat to take us along the coastline on a half day trip and saw secret little beaches and coves. Eating fresh seafood on the terrace of the local restaurants, watching the local fishermen repair their nets or lounging in a beach chair were the highlights of our stay in Salema.

I agree about the Alfama in Lisbon! And Tomar, the Convento de Cristo, formerly the headquarters of the Knights Templar is better than Lisbon's Belem. The little church in the town square, where many of the knights are buried, has some "pagan" items and possibly Masonic scratches on the pillars. And don't miss the synagogue/museum, opens at 2 PM most days, and run by a wonderful woman whose family survived the inquisition and has passed on Jewish traditions mother to daughter for 500 years.
Two more of my favorite places: Guimares and Ponte de Lima. Great country to visit, nice people..they even stop for pedestrians!