10 Days in Portugal: Lisbon, Évora, Coimbra, the Douro & Porto

Fly into Lisbon, fly home from Porto. In between: Lisbon (3 nights) → Évora (1 night) → Coimbra (1 night) → the Douro Valley (2 nights) → Porto (2 nights). This 10 day Portugal itinerary runs in one direction, from the capital to the north, so you never cover the same road twice. The longest drive is about 3 hours, and most days have a morning of sightseeing and a short transfer.

It skips the Algarve on purpose. The south coast is a beach holiday, and it is 3 hours from Lisbon in the wrong direction. If beaches matter more than wine and old towns, see the changes at the end.

Lisbon is built on hills, and the best way to understand it is to start at the top. Spend the first morning in Alfama, the oldest district, where streets are barely wider than a car and the lanes drop towards the Tagus. A local guide is worth it here, because the maze is easy to get lost in and the stories sit in the details: the tiles, the shrines on corners, the fado bars that start after dark.

Day three is for Sintra, in the hills about 40 minutes west. The Pena Palace is the one in the photos, a painted 19th-century fantasy on a ridge. Go early, because the car park and the queue both fill by mid-morning. On the way back, stop in Belém for the Jerónimos Monastery and the Tower of Belém, both tied to the age of exploration, and for a pastel de nata at the bakery that has been making them since 1837.

The Alentejo is a different Portugal: wide, dry, cork oak and olive groves, and almost no traffic. Évora is its main town, a walled UNESCO World Heritage city about 1.5 hours east of Lisbon. A first-century Roman temple stands in the middle of town, next to a cathedral and a former convent. The Chapel of Bones, lined with the skulls and bones of about 5,000 people, is small and strange and takes ten minutes.

If you have time, a short drive out takes you to the Almendres Cromlech, a circle of standing stones older than Stonehenge. Lunch should be local: black pork, bread soups, and the red wines of the region.

From Évora, the drive to Coimbra takes about 3 hours. Coimbra is built up a hill above the Mondego river and holds Portugal's oldest university, founded in 1290 and moved here in 1537. The Joanina Library, with its gilded baroque shelves and a colony of bats that guard the books from insects, is the reason to come. Entry is by timed ticket, so book ahead.

In the evening, walk down through the old town to the river. Students still wear the black capes on formal days, and the city is at its best in term time, from autumn to late spring.

The Douro is the oldest demarcated wine region in the world, and its terraced slopes were added to the UNESCO list in 2001. From Coimbra, the road climbs through the Beira hills and drops to the river near Pinhão, the main wine town. Stay on a working estate (a quinta) so that you can walk the vines at the end of the day.

Your full day is slow on purpose: a visit to a family quinta, a tasting of ports and of the dry reds and whites that Douro producers increasingly make, a long lunch, and an hour on the river by boat. The grape harvest runs from mid-September to mid-October, when the valley smells of crushed grapes and the estates are busiest.

The drive from the Douro to Porto takes 1.5 to 2 hours, following the river west. Porto is granite, steep and slightly worn, in a way that Lisbon is not. Start at São Bento station, whose hall is lined with about 20,000 blue-and-white tiles showing scenes from Portuguese history, then walk down to the Ribeira, the medieval waterfront.

Cross the Dom Luís I bridge on foot to Vila Nova de Gaia, where the port lodges are. The wine ages here, in cellars on the south bank, and most lodges run tours with a tasting. Leave the final evening free for a table in the Ribeira or Foz, the seaside district at the river mouth.

Lisbon: Baixa, Chiado or Príncipe Real, on foot to most sights, with taxis for the hills. Évora: inside the walls. Coimbra: on the river side of the old town, close to the university but away from the steps. Douro: a quinta near Pinhão or Pinhão itself, because the estates are the point. Porto: the Ribeira or the streets just above it, for the river views and a short walk to the station.

April to June and September to October are the best months. The days are warm and long, Lisbon and Porto are not at their most crowded, and the Douro harvest falls in September and October. July and August are hot inland: Évora and the Douro often pass 35°C. November to March is mild and cheaper, but wet, and the rain is heaviest in Porto and the north.

Want a beach? Replace Évora and Coimbra with 3 nights on the Algarve coast, and fly Faro to Porto at the end. Short of time? Our 8-day Best of Portugal tour drops Évora and shortens the Douro to a day trip from Porto. Got 12 days? Add Óbidos and the Atlantic coast of Nazaré, or the Minho region north of Porto. Prefer only wine? Spend four nights in the Douro and cut Coimbra.

We build this route around your dates: private drivers or a rental car, guides in Lisbon, Évora and Porto, timed tickets for Sintra and the Coimbra library, and estates in the Douro that suit how you like to travel. One person on our team stays your contact from the first email to the flight home.