Day-by-day programme of this 12-day itinerary across Lisbon, the historic Centre and Porto with the Douro Valley.
Day 1 — Arrival in Lisbon
You land in Lisbon and reach the centre: an easing-in evening in the oldest quarter, Alfama, among climbing lanes, hanging washing and a fado tavern. Tomorrow the whole city, from the miradouros to tram 28.
- ✈️ Lisbon — Aeroporto Humberto Delgado di Lisbona (LIS)
- 📍 Miradouro de Santa Luzia — Alfama is Lisbon's Moorish heart, the only quarter to survive the 1755 earthquake: a maze of steep lanes, stairways, azulejos and washing strung between houses, where the yellow trams rattle a hand's breadth from the walls. The Miradouro de Santa Luzia, with its pergola and blue tiles, offers the first sweeping view over the rooftops and the Tagus, opening like a sea. You wander down towards the river among workshops and courtyards as the lament of fado drifts from the windows. Dinner is right here, in a neighbourhood tavern.
- 🍽️ Alfama — Your first Portuguese dinner in a nook of Alfama, perhaps a fado house where between courses the lights dim and a voice strikes up saudade, the elusive longing that is the country's soul. On the plate, the classics: bacalhau à brás (cod with egg and potato), grilled sardines, a caldo verde, and to finish a pastel de nata with cinnamon. Cool vinho verde or a glass of Alentejo red. Then a short climb and to bed: tomorrow Lisbon is all on foot and by tram.
- 🏨 Hotel Lis Baixa — Baixa / Chiado, Lisbona
Day 2 — Lisbon
A day in the heart of Lisbon: the castle crowning the city, the geometric Baixa rebuilt after the earthquake, the historic ride of tram 28 and the Time Out food market. Between one miradouro and the next, the brightest city in Europe.
- 📍 São Jorge Castle — From the top of the highest hill, the Moorish castle has watched over Lisbon for a thousand years: crenellated walls, eleven towers, peacocks strolling among the olive trees and a terrace from which the city unrolls all the way to the Tagus and the red bridge that recalls San Francisco's. Buy tickets online to skip the queue, walk the ramparts and play at picking out the neighbourhoods below. On the way down you enter the elegant grid of the Baixa, the neoclassical heart rebuilt after the 1755 earthquake.
- 📍 Praça do Comércio — The Baixa is a chessboard of pedestrian streets between two great squares: the Praça do Comércio, vast and open to the river with the triumphal arch of Rua Augusta and the king on horseback, and the Rossio with its waves of calçada (the black-and-white mosaic cobbles). In between, the Elevador de Santa Justa, the neo-Gothic iron lift up to the Chiado. You stroll among historic cafés and shops selling gloves and tinned fish, climb to a miradouro for the view, and towards lunchtime head for the market.
- 🍽️ Time Out Market Lisboa — In the 19th-century Ribeira market, Time Out has gathered Lisbon's best chefs and restaurants under one roof: you sit at long communal tables and assemble lunch by working the stalls — a bifana (pork sandwich), a plate of octopus, Algarve oysters, a convent sweet, a glass of wine. Chaotic and excellent, it's the fastest way to taste half the city. Refuelled, you catch tram 28 for the capital's most scenic climb.
- 🎯 Tram 28 Lisbon — Tram 28 is an attraction disguised as public transport: the old yellow wooden carriage creaks up the impossible slopes of Alfama, Graça and Estrela, brushing the walls, turning into wafer-thin lanes, delivering one window after another of the real Lisbon. Board early or off-peak to get a seat (and watch for pickpockets, who love it). Off at the Chiado, the elegant district of literary cafés and bookshops, treat yourself to a bica (the local espresso) before sunset from a miradouro. Tomorrow it's Belém and its monuments.
Day 3 — Belém
A morning in Belém, from where the caravels set sail: the Manueline Jerónimos monastery, the tower on the water and the pastel de nata eaten where it was born. A free afternoon between Bairro Alto and LX Factory. Tomorrow the fairy tale of Sintra.
- 📍 Jerónimos Monastery — Belém is the quarter of the epic: from here Vasco da Gama sailed for the Indies, and with the gold of the spice trade the Jerónimos Monastery was built, a masterpiece of the Manueline style, a delirium of stone embroidered with ropes, sailors' knots, armillary spheres and ocean monsters. The two-storey cloister is one of Europe's finest; inside rests Vasco da Gama himself. A UNESCO site, book online to avoid the queue. A few steps away, on the riverfront, the Belém Tower and Portugal's most famous bakery await.
- 📍 Belém Tower — Planted in the waters of the Tagus, the Belém Tower is the symbol of the Portugal of the discoveries: a 16th-century Manueline fort, crenellated like a crown, that waved off the departing ships and welcomed them home. All around, the great prow-shaped Padrão dos Descobrimentos with Henry the Navigator at its head, the garden and the 25 de Abril bridge closing the horizon. You stroll the riverfront and, before leaving Belém, join the queue for the city's most sacred sweet ritual.
- 🍽️ Pastéis de Belém — Here, since 1837, they bake the original: the pastel de Belém, the puff-pastry tart with egg custard, to a secret recipe from the Jerónimos monks that only a few pastry chefs know. It comes warm from the oven, you dust it with cinnamon and icing sugar and bite into it standing, among the azulejo-tiled rooms. The queue moves fast (there's takeaway too). Not to be confused with the pastéis de nata found everywhere: this is the original. Then back towards the centre for an afternoon between the Bairro Alto and the creative warehouses of LX Factory.
- 📍 Miradouro de São Pedro de Alcântara — The Bairro Alto sleeps by day and lights up by night: in late afternoon you climb to the Miradouro de São Pedro de Alcântara, a garden terrace overlooking the rooftops, the castle opposite and the sunset gilding the Tagus. It's the aperitif gathering spot, glass in hand. When darkness falls the lanes fill with people and music, and you dine in a nook over ginjinha (the sour-cherry liqueur served in a chocolate cup) and seafood plates. Tomorrow an early start: the rental car and the fairy-tale day of Sintra.
Day 4 — Sintra and Cabo da Roca
A day among the hills of Sintra, a UNESCO site: the colourful Palácio da Pena atop the woods and the mysterious Quinta da Regaleira with its initiation wells. In the afternoon the westernmost point of the continent, Cabo da Roca, and sunset on the Cascais coast.
- 📍 Pena Palace — Atop the Sintra hills, in a forest forever wrapped in mist, rises a palace that looks drawn by a child: the Palácio da Pena, canary yellow and tomato red, with domes, towers, dragons and arabesques, a masterpiece of 19th-century Romanticism commissioned by the artist-king Ferdinand II. Inside, the royal rooms left as in 1910; outside, a vast park of ferns, sequoias and ponds. Go at opening time, ticket online: after 11 it's a siege. Then down to the village and into the esoteric world of the Quinta da Regaleira.
- 📍 Quinta da Regaleira — The Quinta da Regaleira is the dream of an early-1900s Masonic millionaire: a neo-Manueline villa surrounded by a labyrinth-garden full of alchemical symbols, grottoes, towers and fountains. The highlight is the Initiation Well, an inverted tower of nine spiral ramps descending underground (nine, like Dante's circles), walked down to a base linked by secret tunnels to the caves. It's a place to explore like a child, among hidden passages and surprise views. In mid-afternoon you take the car again and head west, where Europe ends in the ocean.
- 📍 Cabo da Roca — 'Where the land ends and the sea begins', wrote the poet Camões: Cabo da Roca is the westernmost point of continental Europe, a 140-metre cliff sheer above the Atlantic, wind-battered, with a lighthouse and a stone marker. At the tourist office you can collect a certificate proving you were there. The late-afternoon light over the boundless ocean gives you shivers. Then you drop down the coast to Cascais, the elegant seaside town, for sunset and a seafood dinner before returning to Lisbon.
Day 5 — Óbidos and Nazaré
You leave Lisbon and head up into the Centre: the medieval village of Óbidos enclosed in its walls, with ginjinha drunk from a chocolate cup, and then Nazaré, the fishing village made famous by record-breaking waves. You sleep to the sound of the ocean.
- 📍 Óbidos — An hour north of Lisbon, Óbidos is a fairy-tale village entirely within its walls: lanes of little white houses edged in yellow and blue, bougainvillea on the walls, the aqueduct and a castle (now a pousada) at the top. You walk the ramparts for the panoramic circuit, get lost among the shops and drink ginjinha — the sour-cherry liqueur — from the traditional edible chocolate cup you eat at the end. It was the wedding gift kings gave their queens. A sweet, photogenic stop; then half an hour's drive and the ocean appears at Nazaré.
- 📍 Miradouro do Suberco — Nazaré is two towns in one: the beach below, where fishermen's wives still sell sun-dried fish, and the Sítio above, on the headland, reached by a century-old funicular. From the Miradouro do Suberco the gaze plunges over the bay, and just beyond, at Praia do Norte, the world's highest waves break: here in 2020 a 26-metre wave was surfed, thanks to an underwater canyon that amplifies them. Even in summer, when the sea is calm, the lighthouse-museum tells the story. You sleep down here, lulled by the breaking Atlantic.
- 🏨 Ancora Mar — Nazaré
Day 6 — The monasteries and Coimbra
A morning between two Gothic masterpieces and UNESCO sites — the monasteries of Alcobaça and Batalha — then up to Coimbra, the ancient capital and university city, with its gilded Baroque library. An evening among the stairways and students' songs.
- 📍 Alcobaça Monastery — The Cistercian monastery of Alcobaça, founded in 1153, is a cathedral of bare stone and light, austere and immense as the rule demanded: the largest church in medieval Portugal. Here lie, facing each other, the carved tombs of Pedro and Inês, the country's most famous tale of love and death — the queen murdered and then crowned as a corpse. The monumental kitchen had a channel bringing live fish from the river. Half an hour's drive and you reach the other Gothic jewel, even more lavishly carved: Batalha.
- 📍 Batalha Monastery — Built to thank Our Lady for the victory over the Castilians (1385), the Batalha monastery is flamboyant Gothic in its purest form: a thicket of spires, pinnacles, tracery arches and stained glass. Don't miss the Unfinished Chapels, a masterpiece left open to the sky, and the chapter house with the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and its changing of the guard. It is perhaps Portugal's most spectacular monastery. After so much stone, an hour's drive brings you to Coimbra: the pace changes, the life of students arrives.
- 📍 University of Coimbra — Coimbra was Portugal's first capital and home to one of Europe's oldest universities (1290), a UNESCO site perched on the hill above the Mondego river. The jewel is the Joanina Library, Baroque, gilded, with 60,000 antique volumes and a colony of bats that eat insects at night to protect the books (timed entry, book ahead). Around it, the hall of degrees, the tower and the view over the rooftops. Through the old town's stairways echoes the fado of Coimbra, sung only by men in the black student cloak. An evening among taverns and ginjinha.
- 🏨 Hotel Mondego — Centro storico, Coimbra
Day 7 — Aveiro, Costa Nova and Porto
A stop on the way to Porto: Aveiro, the 'Venice of Portugal' with its canals and colourful moliceiros, and nearby Costa Nova with its unmistakable striped houses. In the afternoon you reach Porto and head down to the river for the first sunset over the Ribeira.
- 📍 Aveiro — Aveiro is crossed by canals on which glide the moliceiros, the low colourful boats once used to gather seaweed, now for tourists: a ride aboard is the classic way to see it, among Art Nouveau houses and little bridges. In town you taste ovos moles, sweets of egg yolk and sugar in shell-shaped wafers, a nuns' legacy. Ten minutes away, the beach of Costa Nova lines up its palheiros, wooden houses painted in bright vertical stripes, born as fishermen's stores and now the most Instagrammed image of the coast. Then an hour's drive and you enter Porto.
- 📍 Porto Ribeira — You reach Porto and head straight to where its heart beats: the Ribeira, the old port quarter on the Douro river, an amphitheatre of narrow colourful houses piled on top of one another, with washing strung out, little stairways and the barcos rabelo (the boats that carried the wine) moored on the water. Above, the Ponte Dom Luís I, the great iron arch designed by a pupil of Eiffel, and on the far bank the cellars of Gaia. At sunset the golden light sets the façades aglow and the café tables fill up. It's the image of Porto that stays with you. A first dinner by the river, waiting to explore it tomorrow.
- 🏨 Oca Ribeira do Porto Hotel — Centro storico, Porto
Day 8 — Porto
A day on foot in the old city: the São Bento station lined with azulejos, the Clérigos tower, the Lello bookshop that inspired Harry Potter, the Bolhão market and the Sé at the top. For lunch the Francesinha, Porto's bomb of a sandwich.
- 📍 São Bento Station — You start at the most beautiful station in the world: the hall of São Bento Station is clad in 20,000 azulejos, the blue-and-white tiles telling the history of Portugal — battles, kings, harvests — like a giant early-1900s comic strip. From there you climb to the Sé, the Romanesque fortress-cathedral with its azulejo cloister and city terrace; just below, the church of São Francisco hides an interior entirely coated in gold. You go down and up again (Porto is all ups and downs) towards the Clérigos tower and the world's most famous bookshop.
- 📍 Livraria Lello — The Livraria Lello, from 1906, is one of the most beautiful bookshops on earth: a sinuous red staircase that forks as if in a dream, carved wooden ceilings, stained glass and shelves to the sky. They say J.K. Rowling, who taught English in Porto, took inspiration from it for Hogwarts (she denies it, but the magic remains). You enter with a ticket (discounted against a book purchase) and should book: it's much loved and crowded, best at opening. Next door, the Baroque Clérigos Tower can be climbed for the 360° view. Then it's time for the Francesinha.
- 🍽️ Café Santiago — In Porto you eat the Francesinha, the city's flag dish and enemy of diets: a sandwich stuffed with various meats and sausage, covered in melted cheese and drowned in a thick, spicy tomato-and-beer sauce, with a fried egg on top and a side of chips. Café Santiago is one of the temples of the genre. It's a gloriously calorific bomb, washed down with a cold beer. Walking off the cheese coma along Rua de Santa Catarina (with a stop at the Art Nouveau Café Majestic), in the afternoon you head down to the river and the Gaia cellars.
- 📍 Mercado do Bolhão — The Mercado do Bolhão, 19th-century and recently restored, is the belly of Porto: two floors of fish, fruit and flower stalls, hanging salt cod and historic shops where the stalls pass down through families. You taste, buy a tin of sardines decorated like a work of art, chat with the sellers. It's the right place to grasp the real Porto, far from the Lello queues. Towards evening you head onto the bridge for the loveliest view, from the other side of the river. Tomorrow: port wine and a cruise on the Douro.
Day 9 — Gaia and port wine
A day of water and wine: you cross the Ponte Dom Luís to Vila Nova de Gaia, where the port wine cellars rest, with a tasting; then the six-bridges cruise on the Douro and sunset from Jardim do Morro, the loveliest balcony over the city.
- 🎯 Vila Nova de Gaia — You cross the lower level of the Ponte Dom Luís on foot, over the water, and arrive at Vila Nova de Gaia, the other bank: here, in the cool dark warehouses of the great historic houses — Sandeman, Cálem, Graham's, Ferreira — port wine ages, the sweet fortified wine that made the city famous. The grapes grow on the Douro, but it's here the wine rests in huge barrels. A guided visit with tasting (tawny, ruby, vintage, white) explains it all and ends with two or three glasses overlooking the river. Many cellars pair the tasting with live fado. In the afternoon you board for the cruise.
- 🎯 Cais da Ribeira — The six-bridges cruise (Cruzeiro das Seis Pontes) is the Porto classic: fifty minutes on a rabelo boat up and down the Douro, passing under the six bridges that join Porto to Gaia, from the iron Dom Luís to the ultra-modern viaduct, each from a different era. From mid-river both banks reveal their full drama: the piled-up Ribeira, the cellars, the stairways. It's cheap and runs constantly. Off the boat, you climb back onto the bridge to the Jardim do Morro for sunset: the balcony-hill from which Porto glows pink as the sun drops towards the ocean.
Day 10 — The Douro Valley
A trip to the Douro Valley, a UNESCO site: one of the oldest wine regions in the world, with vineyards carved in terraces down to the river. A visit to a quinta with a tasting and, at Pinhão, a stretch of cruise between the hills. You return to Porto for the evening.
- 🎯 Quinta das Carvalhas — An hour and a half east of Porto, the Douro Valley opens into a breathtaking spectacle: hills sculpted by thousands of vine terraces dropping to the green river, worked by hand for centuries. It is the oldest demarcated wine region in the world (1756), where the grapes of port wine grow. You visit a quinta — like the Quinta das Carvalhas, overlooking Pinhão — among the rows, the cellars and a tasting with a view over the valley. Lunch on the terrace, between glasses, is one of the trip's loveliest moments. In the afternoon you go down to the river for a stretch of cruise.
- 📍 Pinhão — Pinhão is the heart of the wine Douro: a little town on a bend of the river with a railway station decorated in azulejos depicting the harvest. From here the barcos rabelo set off for an hour's cruise among the terraced hills, the best way to admire the valley from the water, as the barrel-laden boats once did on their way to Gaia. Those who prefer can drive up to the Miradouro de São Leonardo de Galafura for the view from above. At sunset you return to Porto along the river's scenic road (the N222, voted one of the world's most beautiful). A last evening in the city.
Day 11 — Guimarães and Braga
A trip to the green north: Guimarães, where Portugal was born, with its castle and UNESCO medieval centre, and Braga, the city of churches, with the spectacular Baroque staircase of the Bom Jesus do Monte sanctuary. You return to Porto for the last night.
- 📍 Guimarães — 'Aqui nasceu Portugal' — here Portugal was born: on a wall in Guimarães stands the inscription that says it all. In this town, in 1139, the first king, Afonso Henriques, founded the nation. The medieval centre, a UNESCO site, is a delight of cobbled squares, half-timbered houses and flowered loggias (Praça de Santiago, Largo da Oliveira); above, the castle with crenellated towers and the Paço dos Duques de Bragança, the dukes' palace. A cable car climbs Penha hill for the view. Half an hour's drive and you reach Braga, the rival, a city of churches and a spectacular sanctuary.
- 📍 Bom Jesus do Monte Sanctuary — Above Braga, the sanctuary of Bom Jesus do Monte is one of Portugal's most spectacular sights: a zig-zag Baroque staircase of over 600 white steps climbing between allegorical fountains, statues and terraces to the church at the top, a symbol of spiritual ascent. You can climb on foot (for the devout, once on their knees) or by the world's oldest water-powered funicular (1882). From the top, the view over the city and the green Minho. Braga itself, the 'Portuguese Rome', is worth a wander between the country's oldest cathedral and its historic cafés. Then back to Porto: tomorrow you set off home.
Day 12 — Home from Porto
An unhurried morning for a last walk by the river and a pastel de nata, then a transfer to Porto airport and a direct flight home. You return with the taste of port wine and azulejos in your eyes.
- ✈️ Porto — Aeroporto di Milano Malpensa (MXP)
