Reality Check on Rick Steves Best of Portugal in 13 days tour....

Ola! We were on the Heart of Portugal tour right after Covid and yes, Lisbon is hilly but not too difficult if you've been walking 10K per day plus hills and stair climbing. We were in our early 70s at the time. This tour is not as strenuous as some other RS tours to some parts of France and Italy.

That sounds great!

Thanks for your response. Sounds like something I can do and it sounds like now is the time! :-).

And like San Francisco there are buses and trolley cars. I don’t remember this tour as being anywhere as strenuous as some of the streets I’ve gone up and down in SF. You’ll be fine.

I recall two days with long uphill walks:
1) Lisbon - on the day we toured the Alfama
2) Porto - from the waterfront, it was a long uphill walk back to our hotel which was near the Bolhao Market.

The tiles on the streets in Lisbon can be really slick; take shoes with some traction. I was happy that I had some trailrunners with good tread.

! Yay ! I'm in. Trolleys, buses? I forgot.

Yeah I can do this. Thanks for the encouragement.

IIRC, when we did this tour four years ago, we were given a transportation card for Lisbon, and as a group we used it on the funicular to the Bairro Alto district (sadly, there was a tragic derailment of that funicular, Elevador da Gloria, and it remains out of commission). We were able to use that card for our free time explorations in Lisbon. In Porto, we walked, but the guides are great and know groups aren't accustom to hills so they take there time and have rest stops (one stop was the Sao Bento train station with its beautiful tiles!). I'm sure you'll do fine.

I have not done any RS tours but I did use the RS guidebook for Lisbon. It had a list of a number of elevator and escalator shortcuts to avoid a number of the steeper hills.

We did this tour 2 years ago, when we were 76 and 78. We don't walk nearly as much as you do, and we had absolutely no trouble on the Portugal tour.

I do recommend shoes with grippy soles, however. The tiles can be slick!

This is wonderful tour; you'll be fine.

Thanks again RS folks. I appreciate the feedback!

I am taking this tour next year, also, and I’m turning 70 this year. I like to think that my walks up, up, up in Assisi & Spello in May tested my endurance at the end of a month’s trip & gave me the green light to keep going! Here’s a site that has a good explanation of options & details:

https://www.discover-portugal.com/effortless-routes-in-lisbon/

We did this tour a couple years ago at 72 and 73. We walk regularly but not a lot of hills. We arrived 3 days early and challenged ourselves with hills a few times, though we took the bus in Sintra to the Peña Palace. I don’t remember the tour being very strenuous at all—hills, yes, but there was always something to stop and look at. It was a fabulous tour and I see that they’ve added a day or two to it—great idea.
By the was, I’d recommend seeing Sintra and the Peña Palace either before or after the tour. We had bad luck with weather the day we were there so need to return to see the grounds.