Book aheadBook the Pena Palace slot for Monday and the Lisbon–Porto train seats as soon as you have dates; Easter week and April weekends sell out first.
Hours, prices, timetables and coordinates are from general knowledge; re-check them on the official sites before you go.
Seven days: Alfama and the castle, Belém and Bairro Alto, Sintra's palaces, the train to Porto, Porto's old town, the Douro by train and boat, a last morning before the flight.
Land at 11:00, metro to the hotel. After lunch, the castle and Alfama's lanes; sunset from a viewpoint and dinner in the old quarter.
🗺 The whole day in Google Maps →about €2 each
The red metro line from the airport, change at Alameda for the green line to Baixa-Chiado, 30 minutes. Buy a Viva Viagem card at the machines and load it with zapping credit; it works on metro, trams, buses and the Sintra train. Drop the bags and eat a prato do dia nearby.
A Moorish castle, taken by Portugal's first king in 1147, on Lisbon's highest hill, with walls and towers you can walk and the whole city below.
about €15 eachday's highlight
Tram 28 or a 20-minute climb from the Baixa. Walk the walls clockwise for the views over the river and the red roofs of Alfama; the peacocks in the gardens are tame. The ticket queue is shortest after lunch; buying online skips it.
Allow an hour and a half.
Lisbon's oldest quarter, the one the 1755 earthquake spared: stairways, washing lines and small squares between the castle and the river.
freesteep
Start at the Santa Luzia viewpoint, its tiled walls and bougainvillea, then go down without a map towards the Sé cathedral. Ginjinha, the sour-cherry liqueur, is sold from doorways for about €2 a glass.
The highest viewpoint in Lisbon, looking back across the castle hill to the river.
free
Fifteen minutes uphill from Alfama, or a taxi. Sunset in mid-April is around 20:15; come a little before. Quieter than the Graça viewpoint below it.
€25–40 each
Grilled fish or bacalhau in a tasca; the bread, olives and cheese put on the table are charged if eaten. Fado houses in Alfama serve dinner with the singing; book one for tomorrow if you want it.
Belém's monastery and custard tarts in the morning, the riverside to LX Factory, then Chiado, Bairro Alto and a fado evening.
🗺 The whole day in Google Maps →A monastery of white limestone begun in 1501 and paid for by the spice trade, with a two-storey cloister carved with ropes, sea creatures and armillary spheres. Vasco da Gama is buried in its church.
about €18 eachday's highlightbook a time
Tram 15 from Praça da Figueira or the Cais do Sodré train, 25 minutes. Book the opening slot online; by eleven the queue runs along the façade. The church is free and has its own door.
Allow an hour for the cloister and the church.
The bakery that has made custard tarts to the monastery's recipe since 1837.
about €1.50 a tart
The takeaway queue moves fast; inside, the tiled rooms at the back have seats. Eat them warm with cinnamon and icing sugar.
A small fortress of 1519 in the river, the image of Portugal's voyages, with the Monument to the Discoveries along the bank.
free outside
See the tower from the riverbank; the inside is small and the queue long. Walk east along the water past the Monument to the Discoveries and the MAAT's wave-shaped roof, which you can walk over for free, 40 minutes to LX Factory.
A 19th-century textile factory under the 25 de Abril bridge, now restaurants, shops and Ler Devagar, a bookshop with a bicycle flying overhead.
€15–25 each
Sunday is its busiest day, with a market. After lunch, tram 15 back to Cais do Sodré and a rest at the hotel.
Chiado is Lisbon's old shopping street of cafés and theatres; Bairro Alto above it is a grid of narrow lanes that fills with bars after dark.
free
Walk up from Café A Brasileira to the São Pedro de Alcântara viewpoint, looking across to the castle you climbed yesterday. Or ride the Glória funicular, about €4.
Fado is Lisbon's song of longing, sung to two guitars; a fado house serves dinner and stops talking for each set.
€40–60 each with dinnerbook
Book a table a day ahead in Alfama or Bairro Alto. Smaller houses, where waiters and cooks also sing, cost less and feel less staged.
The 8:11 train to Sintra, Pena Palace at a booked 9:30, the Moorish Castle's walls, lunch in the old town and Quinta da Regaleira's gardens.
🗺 The whole day in Google Maps →about €2.50 each way
From Rossio station, a horseshoe-arched façade on the square, trains leave every 20 minutes and take 40. Pay with the Viva Viagem card. From Sintra station, the 434 bus loops up to Pena; a tuk-tuk costs about €5 each.
A 19th-century king's fantasy palace of yellow and red towers on a crag above Sintra, built by Ferdinand II over a ruined monastery.
about €20 eachday's highlighttimed slot
The first slot matters: by eleven the rooms are a slow queue. The terraces look over the coast to Lisbon and the sea. Allow two hours with the park below.
Walls of the 9th and 10th centuries snaking along the ridge opposite Pena, with both palaces and the sea in view.
about €12 eachsteps
Ten minutes' walk from Pena. Walk the wall between the two towers; steep steps, few railings. Then 25 minutes down a forest path to the old town.
Sintra's old town below the National Palace, known for two pastries: travesseiros, almond-cream puff pastry, and queijadas.
€15–25 each
Lunch off the main square, then the pastries at Piriquita, the bakery that has made them since 1862.
A millionaire's estate of about 1910 with a gothic mansion, grottoes and the Initiation Well, a spiral of stone stairs 27 metres down into the earth.
about €15 eachbook
Ten minutes' walk from the old town. Go down the well first, then follow the tunnels out to the lake. Allow an hour and a half. The train back runs until late; you are in Lisbon by 18:00.
€25–35 each
An early night: tomorrow's train leaves mid-morning. Bifana, a pork sandwich, or arroz de marisco, a soupy seafood rice for two.
The 10:39 fast train to Porto, three hours. Bags at the hotel, the Ribeira and the Dom Luís bridge, a port tasting in Gaia and dinner across the river.
🗺 The whole day in Google Maps →€30–45 eachreserved seats
Portugal's fast tilting train, about 2 hours 50 to Porto Campanhã. Take a seat on the left for the river and the sea after Aveiro. At Campanhã, any train on the next platform runs to São Bento in five minutes, free with the ticket.
Porto's central station of 1916, its hall lined with 20,000 blue-and-white tiles showing battles and country life.
free
You arrive under the tiles. Drop the bags at the hotel and have a late lunch nearby.
Porto's riverfront of tall coloured houses, and the two-deck iron bridge of 1886 above it, by a partner of Gustave Eiffel's.
freeday's highlight
Walk down through the lanes to the Ribeira's quay, then up to the bridge's upper deck, shared with the metro, and across to the Serra do Pilar monastery terrace on the far side: the classic view of Porto.
Down on the Gaia side by the cable car or the steps, ten minutes.
Vila Nova de Gaia, across the river from Porto, is where port has been aged in barrels for 300 years; the old lodges give tours and tastings.
€20–35 eachbook
Taylor's and Graham's are up the hill with gardens and views; Sandeman and Cálem are on the quay. An hour with three wines. Book a day or two ahead.
€25–40 each
Try a francesinha, Porto's meat sandwich under melted cheese and beer sauce, or grilled sardines. Walk back over the lower deck, lit at night.
The Lello bookshop at opening, the Clérigos tower, the Bolhão market and the tiled chapels, then the evening by the sea at Foz.
🗺 The whole day in Google Maps →A bookshop of 1906 with a carved wooden ceiling and a red forked staircase, one of the most photographed shops in Europe.
€10–15 each, off a bookbook a time
Book the first entry online; later the queue goes round the corner. The ticket price comes off any book you buy. Half an hour is enough.
A baroque bell tower of 1763, 75 metres high, that sailors steered by; 225 steps to the top and a view over the whole city.
about €10 eachday's highlight
Two minutes from Lello. The stairs are narrow and one-way at the top. From the gallery you see the river, Gaia's lodges and the cathedral on its hill.
The Bolhão is Porto's covered market of 1914, reopened after restoration; the Capela das Almas nearby is covered outside in blue tiles.
free
Walk up the Rua de Santa Catarina past Café Majestic, a 1921 café of mirrors and carved wood. Coffee there costs triple; look in from the door if you prefer. Taste cheese and ham at the market's stalls.
€15–25 each
Bifanas, a cod cake with a glass of vinho verde, or a prato do dia nearby. A rest at the hotel after.
Foz is where the Douro meets the Atlantic: lighthouses on the breakwater, a promenade and beach bars.
about €6 each way
The old tram 1 runs along the river from the Ribeira to Passeio Alegre, 25 minutes. Walk out to the Felgueiras lighthouse, then along the promenade for the sunset over the sea.
€30–45 each
Matosinhos, a 10-minute taxi north, is the fishing port: fish grilled in the street on charcoal, priced by weight. A taxi back to the centre is about €12.
The 9:15 river train from São Bento to Pinhão, two and a half hours along the Douro. A boat, a quinta tasting, and the train back in the evening.
🗺 The whole day in Google Maps →A regional railway of the 1880s that follows the river for its last hour, through tunnels and past terraced vineyards.
about €13 each way
Seats are not reserved; be on the platform 15 minutes early and sit on the right for the river. After Régua the line runs at the water's edge. Pinhão station has its own tiled panels of the harvest. Check the day's timetable on cp.pt.
Small boats from Pinhão's quay take an hour up and down the river between the steepest terraces of the valley, a UNESCO landscape.
€15–20 eachday's highlight
Several companies sell at the quay; boats leave on the hour. The hillsides are built into walls by hand, row on row, each holding a few vines. In April the vines are just in leaf.
€20–30 each
Roast kid or bacalhau with a glass of Douro red, the valley's other wine.
A quinta is a Douro wine estate; several by Pinhão open their cellars and terraces for tastings of port and table wine.
€15–30 eachbook
Quinta do Bomfim is a ten-minute walk from the station; book a slot ahead. An hour, four or five wines.
about €13
About two and a half hours; you are in São Bento by 19:30. Dinner near the hotel.
The cathedral terrace and the old lanes below it, a last pastry, then metro line E to the airport for the 15:00 flight.
🗺 The whole day in Google Maps →A fortress-like cathedral of the 12th century on Porto's highest point, with a tiled gothic cloister.
terrace free, cloister about €3
The terrace in front looks down over the roofs to the river. Walk down through the Barredo lanes behind it, the oldest in the city.
€3–5 each
Pick up the bags. A pastel de nata and a galão, milky coffee in a glass, near São Bento.
about €2.50 each
Line E, the violet line, from Trindade or Bolhão, 35 minutes; or a taxi, 25 minutes and about €25. At the airport by 13:00 for the 15:00 flight.
Two kinds of train on this trip: the fast one between the cities, booked, and local ones, bought on the day.
The Alfa Pendular and the cheaper Intercidades run every hour or two, 2 hours 50 to 3 hours 15. Seats are reserved; book on cp.pt or the CP app, where early fares are cheaper. Show the ticket on your phone.
The Sintra train and Porto's suburban trains take the Viva Viagem card in Lisbon or the Andante card in Porto. The Douro line has no reservations: buy at the station or on cp.pt, and come early in spring and summer.
Both cities are steep, with cobbles that are slippery when wet. The old trams are charming and crowded; tram 28 in Lisbon is a target for pickpockets. Taxis and ride apps are cheap: €6–10 across either centre.
Lunch from 12:30, dinner from 19:30, later on weekends. The bread, olives and cheese put on the table are charged if eaten; send them back if you do not want them. The prato do dia, dish of the day, is the cheap lunch. Tip by rounding up, 5–10%.
Cards work almost everywhere, including contactless on trams. Keep €50 in cash for small tascas, market stalls and the Douro boats. ATMs marked Multibanco charge no fee of their own; avoid Euronet machines.
For two, 7 days and 6 nights from Lisbon to Porto: rooms, trains, tickets, food and a buffer. Flights are not included.
| Item | Economy | Comfort | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hotel in Lisbon, 3 nights | €330 | €540 | |
| Hotel in Porto, 3 nights | €300 | €480 | |
| City taxes | €24 | €24 | €2 per person a night |
| Lisbon–Porto train | €60 | €90 | Second or first class |
| Douro train, Sintra train, metro and trams | €90 | €110 | |
| Castle, Jerónimos, Pena, Moorish Castle, Regaleira, Lello, Clérigos | €200 | €200 | About €100 each |
| Port lodge, quinta tasting and Douro boat | €110 | €160 | |
| Fado dinner | €80 | €120 | |
| Lunches | €200 | €280 | 7 lunches for two |
| Dinners | €300 | €420 | 6 dinners for two |
| Coffee, pastries, ginjinha | €60 | €80 | |
| Buffer | €100 | €200 | Taxis, a bottle of port |
| Total | €1,854 | €2,704 |
Realistic figure: About €2,100–2,400 for two, without flights
Cards work almost everywhere. Keep €50 in cash for tascas, market stalls and the Douro boats.
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