There are two very different sides to Portugal; the perfect, Atlantic-facing beaches found in the country’s south, and the old, fascinating cities and towns from Évora northwards. I created the Portugal itinerary to focus on the latter – it doesn’t take much planning to book a week on the beach.
One of my many crackpot theories is that any city which has a tram system is a city worth visiting. This is especially true of Lisbon and I fondly recall riding the yellow and white trams up and down those steep streets. I also fondly recall the pasteis de nata and have yet to find one that tastes better than those I ate in Portugal.
Portugal has a great public transport system, which made it easy to create this itinerary. It has a cheap, yet relatively luxurious railway and so that features on the Luxury, Mid-range and Budget versions. A lot of organised tours seem to miss out Évora but, being so full of history as well as so close to Lisbon, I thought that it should definitely feature.
Being such a popular destination for tourists, the choice of accommodation of huge and this itinerary features everything from the 5* Hotel Avenida Palace in Lisbon to the highly rated Porto Spot Hostel. Something I’d love to do one day is take a multi-day cruise down the Douro River and so I of course mentioned this as an option for the Mid-range and Luxury versions.
A Plan To Go 