scdreamer

Working on the itinerary for three weeks in Portugal in September. So far - Porto (4 nights), Douro Valley (2 nights), and trying to figure out the next stop, which we will use as a base for exploring the surrounding areas - before we head south and then back north to Lisbon, where we will turn in our car.

I've narrowed it down to either Tomar or Coimbra - will definitely see both but would prefer to stay in the same place for five days - using it as a base.

Pros and cons for either?

KarenWoo

I haven't been to Tomar or Coimbra so I can't comment. But want to let you know that MaiTaiTom has an ongoing trip report for Portugal. Have you seen it? His recent posts are about Tomar and Coimbra, and they both look wonderful!!!

Maribel

I’ve been to both as has progol, who also wrote a wonderful report of her 3+ week adventures, along with photos.

I could spend 3 nights in Tomar, using it as a base to visit Batalha, Albocaça, the Convento de Cristo, the Almoural castle in the middle of the river, also of the Knights Templar and the aqueduct that maitai and progol visited and photographed.

But I might have trouble spending 5 nights there, as it’s much smaller than Coimbra and has fewer and lodging options. Coimbra is also a university city with more nightlife, and there is fado, very different from the Lisbon version (in Coimbra it’s all male singers) that you might enjoy. Several fado houses: it’s free at the Café Santiago, and there’s also Fado ao Centro plus À Capella.
A bit about Coimbra fado-
https://nelsoncarvalheiro.com/coimbra-fado/

And things to do in Coimbra here-
https://juliedawnfox.com/things-to-do-coimbra/

And about Coimbra University student life-
https://nelsoncarvalheiro.com/life-o...a-photo-essay/

scdreamer

Thank you, Maribel - I've found what looks like a really great airbnb in Coimbra within walking distance of the old city, and with parking included. I'm very tempted to take it for five nights, and visit Tomar as a day trip. Other option is to take it for four nights and stay a night in Tomar when we leave to head south. I'm not a fan of one-night stays anywhere, though, as I think too much time is wasted checking in and out of lodging.

On another note - I am finding that with the itinerary I have set up (France, Spain, Portugal), it isn't looking as if we are going to have time to get much further south than Lisbon on this trip. So much to see - guess this will call for another foray into Portugal in the future.

Maribel

Like you, scdreamer, Í´m not a fan of one night stays, but sometimes I just find them necessary. (Tiny Marvão, the eagles’ nest, for example, for me is a 1-night stay, due to its isolation, as is Monsanto, but that’s just me.)
I personally would be frustrated with only a day trip to Tomar, but I realize that people do it all the time, including my friends.

I just would allow plenty of time to spend at the Convento de Cristo, to stroll the gardens, to visit the lower town (maitaitom is the only Fodorite I know who has visited the Matchbobox Museum-Museo dos Fósforos)with its Jewish synagogue and have a nice leisurely lunch, but that´s just me.

I forgot where you are headed after Coimbra. To Lisbon, I assume? Or to the Alentejo (my favorite region)?

There is indeed so much to see in Portugal, so don’t feel bad if you have to leave out the Costa Vicentina of the coastal Alentejo, and the Algarve, which is all about hiking the dramatic cliffs, water sports (weather dependent), boat rides to the grottos, golf, surfing and for norther Europeans and Canadiens in winter, enjoying the warmer weather as “snowbirds”. You can return!

progol

scdreamer,
Much as I liked Tomar, I wouldn’t stay there for 1 night. We were in Tomar for 3 nights to use it as a base for seeing Bathalha and Albocaça. We were also in Coimbra for 3 nights, but our focus was on the sights in the city itself. And, as Maribel says, there’s much more to see and do in Coimbra than in Tomar. You can see the wonderful Convento de Cristo on your day trip to Tomar.

maribel, thank you for your kind words! I haven’t been on the Europe board much over the last few months, as our travel plans have taken us elsewhere. I had hoped to go to Spain, but cost of travel being what it is has meant making some hard choices. But I do keep checking in to see what’s going on!

scdreamer

Okay! So now I am intrigued by your statement about Alentejo being your favorite region!

After Coimbra, we will have nine more days before we fly home from Lisbon, where we were thinking of spending our final four days. That leaves us five days - would you suggest we explore Alentejo with that time? Evora? Estremoz? Elvas? I know next to nothing about Alentejo. We will be fine with skipping beach towns on this trip - we live in California about ten minutes from the beaches, so that isn't a priority. Thank you again for your valuable insight.

progol

Ooh, go to Marvão for a night and then go to Evora! As Maribel says, it’s one place that doesn’t need 2 nights, but Marvão is in every sense a HIGHlight! It’s a wonderfully-sited hill town, overlooking the countryside and it is stunning.

And then to Evora for 3 nights. I’d add the extra night to Lisbon but maybe Maribel will have a better idea. We didn’t stay in any other towns in the region.

Maribel

Yes, yes, yes! I would use as your base Evora, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Estremoz and Elvas are lovely too, and we have stayed in both Pousadas there, but Evora makes a good central base. We always go to the Alentejo region with a car. I would be very frustrated spending time there without a vehicle to take multiple day trips. We once did an Alentejo trip staying at all the pousadas except for the one in Beja. That said, I won’t ever go there in the summer, as I would roast. It’s extremely hot then. The folks at the Esporão winery said they have to do their harvest in August at night to be able to withstand the heat.

Why do I love the Alentejo? It’s Portugal’s bread basket, with great, hearty regional cuisine, (especially the Iberian black pork), the land of rolling hills, horse farms, cork farms that can be visited/toured, megalithic sites galore (dolmens, cromlechs, etc), evocative former Moorish whitewashed fortress towns, like Monsaraz, castles galore (they’re empty but they’re everywhere), winery estates, rustic pottery towns, like Redondo and São Pedro do Corval, the Serra da Mamede mountain range, where Marvão is dramatically perched (the eagles’ nest), pretty spa towns like Castelo da Vide with its ancient Jewish quarter and original synagogue, the Alqueva dam next to Monsaraz, the largest man-made lake in Europe, star gazing there, Evora’s cathedral, temple of Diana, eery chapel of bones, excellent fine arts museum, aqueduct, public gardens with strutting peacocks, great restaurants, nice lodging in all price ranges, and Evora sits only a 90-minute drive from Lisbon airport.

It reminds me partly of Spain’s Extremadura, which is next door and a bit of Andalusia, It’s also the largest producer of cork in the world.
Alentejo is laid back and very peaceful.

Here is more reading’
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/o...tejo-zkp93qtml

https://juliedawnfox.com/things-to-do-evora-portugal/

xyz99

Nothing new to add, but here is another vote to everything progol and Maribel said before. Evora makes for a good base, and if you have time (and it seems that you do) please add it to your itinerary. We loved Monsanto, I know if's out of the way, but if you manage to stop there for a few hours I don't think you would regret it.
I don't like 1 night stays either, so I would split those 5 nights between Tomar and Coimbra as 2+3. There is a lot to see/do in the area, so decide where you want to spend more time. We stayed 3 nights in each, and liked them both.
In September, you could easily add an extra night in the Douro Valley, the driving to/from is longer, and the area is gorgeous. Not to mention, the food and wine...
Do not reduce the time you have in Porto!!!

Maribel

I like xyz99’s idea of the 3+2 split. I didn’t think of that. That way from Tomar you could also visit Albocaça or Batalha in addition to visiting the Convento de Cristo in town.

You may want to think about how easy the car access will be to your airbnb in Coimbra. We chose not to lodge in the upper town near the University because of the challenge of managing the narrow, nearly vertical streets of the upper town.

I just read maitai’s adventure of negotiating these Coimbra streets. Coimbra was built on top of a mountain, so to speak, and is a vertical city. It has an interesting narrow, whitewashed (and graffiti covered) staircase that takes one from the University to the lower town and vice versa called the Back Breaker’s street, “Escadas do Quebra Costas”. It was built in the 8th century to get citizens from uptown to downtown. It’s now used by students to get from their downtown lodging to their university classes. It gave us a good cardio workout!

progol

If the OP wants to stay in only one place, I’d still recommend Coimbra as rhe preferred town, but if she wants to break it up, 3 + 2 (or even 3) would make sense.

We did 3 + 3, using Tomar as a base to visit Albocaça and Batalha as well as seeing the sights in Tomar.

We walked up to the university once (though not by the stairs you refer to, Maribel!) because the elevator wasn’t running, but happily, when we returned, the elevator worked. Walking up once was enough!

xyz99

LOL, we took the easy way to get to the Coimbra university, we took an Uber.
I agree, you don't want to negotiate the small, vertical 1-way streets in Coimbra. We had a car, but stayed outside the town: parked the car there for the 3 nights and used Uber to get in town. Use google maps to see how the street of your airB&B looks like.
With very few exceptions in Sintra and the Douro Valley, we found Uber in Portugal to be very cheap and reliable.

Maribel

We, like progol, stayed on the other side of the river at Quinta das Lagrimas. We took a taxi (4 of us) from there to the University buildings to start our touring, then after an entire day of sightseeing and lunch, we walked back. We could have taken an Uber, as we used it very successfully in Porto, Sintra and Cascais.

About the elevators, escalators, funiculars,
We seem to have the “magic” touch with them, as when we try to use them, they’re all out of order!
This happened to my infamous hack of using the escalators in the Baixa-Chiado metro to reach the top of Chiado without climbing. Alas, as maitai discovered, the 2nd elevator was out of order. I read in the Portuguese news that it won’t be repaired until later on this year ?? So much for the brillant hacks!

Ditto to the elevator at Coimbra’s wonderful Museu Nacional Machado de Castro. My friend had knee problems and wanted to use the elevator, but alas, out of order.

The funi, the longest one in Portugal, that takes one in Viana do Castelo up to the Sanctuary of Santa Luzia was not functioning for years, then finally began to run. Now I read that it’s “temporarily” closed, or at least that’s what google says, although I had read that it had reopened. One never knows

scdreamer

Our airbnb is on the other side of the river from the old city and the university - I did take a look on Google Maps and it doesn't seem impossible. Street view is definitely cobblestone, but doesn't look super narrow. We will park the car - and can walk across Pte de Santa Clara to the University side fairly easily - google shows it is a 22-minute walk from the apartment to the university library,. I went ahead and booked five nights in Coimbra - it's a very nice apartment - and we will probably only use the car to head out and explore surrounding areas.

Maribel

If your airbnb is on the other side of the Mondego River in Santa Clara (which is flat), yes, you can park the car and walk over the bridge as we did (coming back to our hotel from sightseeing).

We did take a taxi (the 4 of us) from our hotel to the top of Coimbra to the University because we just wanted to avoid the climb. Then we walked back to the hotel from the downtown area (flat) at the end of our touring days.
One of the reasons we stayed in Santa Clara was the ease of reaching our hotel on wider, flat streets and our hotel’s handy on site parking. We used the car for our trip out to the Roman ruins of Conímbriga.

scdreamer

Pretty sure we'll do the same - steep hills are not my idea of a fun walk. Since this is our first time in Portugal, the topography.of many of our destinations will likely be a surprise. Glad our airbnb has a designated parking place, so we can leave the car - or take it for day trips. .