I'll arrive a day early in Lisbon, and will fly out of Lisbon 3 days after the tour ends in Porto. Trying to decide if I should spend more time in Porto, or if there is someplace on the train line to Lisbon I should visit. I'm usually decisive and figure out a plan easily, but not this time.
This will be during the week leading up to Easter, and will be my first time to Portugal.
Following! We're doing this tour in September of next year.
I'll be on that tour in October, and thought of following on with the Basque tour, but the dates don't work. I'm also looking for ideas for post tour. I was in Spain in 2014, and while it was lovely, I don't know if I'd like to return. Not exactly nearby, but maybe a flight to Italy? I would really like to get back there!
I depart for the RS Portugal tour in less than 2 weeks. I am a planning to spend my first 2 nights in Sintra before moving on to Lisbon. That could be a good stop for you before your flight out of Lisbon. After the tour, I am flying from Porto to Madeira for a week; Madeira wasn’t even on my radar but there are non-stop flights from Porto and I am really excited about my stay there.
A couple trip reports from other posters on this site have given me ideas. In particular, I really enjoyed the Grangers on the Go scrapbook and the trip reports from Priscilla
https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/trip-reports/portugal-our-trip-in-progress
https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/trip-reports/evora-our-trip-in-progress
https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/trip-reports/tomar-coimbra-and-porto
https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/trip-reports/lisbon-the-end-of-our-amazing-trip
We took this wonderful tour in 2016. OMG I can’t believe it’s been 6 years this month. We arrived 2 days prior and took a guided tour of Sintra. One option would be to spend a couple nights in Sintra post tour and your last night in Lisbon? We loved Porto but felt the two nights sufficed. Many on this forum have stayed in Tomar. I’ve read several positive reviews. I would also look at Priscilla’s trip report referenced up thread. Great report! Whatever you choose it will be a great tour!
I had a look at some Sintra information and it does look like an interesting possibility. Thanks!
LIZinPA, should the emails become overwhelming, you can change to settings in your profile to not receive them. I used to have mine set to get emails with every response, and was soon buried in emails. I changed that, but do still receive emails whenever someone sends me a private message.
We did this tour in spring this year and added 2 days ahead of tour in Lisbon, and several days after tour in Porto. We had been to Lisbon before, and would recommend a day trip to Sintra and the Moorish Castle if the weather is nice. We also walked up to Castello San Jorge, wandered around center city, ate where we wanted, tried to go to the Tile Museum (it was closed for lunch). In Porto, we highly recommend going to a port lodge in Gaia (across the river) - this is not included in the tour but should be IMO. We went to Taylor's. Fascinating self-guided tour of the lodge, port tasting included with ticket, lovely garden to sit and sip. We also walked along the river to Alfruada, the historic and still active fishing village (great grilled fish lunch). We went to the "Harry Potter" book store (buy tickets online, ahead of time!), took a tuk-tuk tour of several sites, took the bus to Matsosinhos on the coast. We really enjoyed Porto! We stayed at the tour hotels at both ends of the trip, so we didn't need to pack and change locations.
I just this week decided on my itinerary.
I will head to Sintra right after the tour for the last 3 nights. I've reserved at this place many have recommended:
https://www.saudade.pt
It turns out getting to the Lisbon airport from there is quite doable, so no need to move for the final night.
I appreciate all the advice!
I am thinking of trying to take Rick’s Spain Tour before Portugal hooking them together with the ALSA bus. Has anyone tried doing this combination or taken the ALSA bus?
From Porto, I recommend spending time in historic Guimares, Portugal’s first capital city.
