7 Days in Porto and the Douro
A full week beyond Porto itself is enough to do every stop on this list properly, including the one everybody gets wrong: Lisbon. This extends the 6-day itinerary ; the full case for each stop is in the Porto, Portugal guide .
| Day | Focus |
|---|---|
| 1 | Arrival and orientation |
| 2-3 | Douro Valley, overnight |
| 4 | Guimarães and Braga |
| 5 | Aveiro |
| 6 | Coimbra |
| 7 | Lisbon, or why I’d skip the day trip |
Book these before you go: a quinta stay in the Douro for the overnight, and a river cruise or second winery visit for day three; both fill up in the warmer months.
Day 1: Arrival and orientation
Metro Line E runs from the airport to Trindade in 30 to 45 minutes on the standard fare. Trains from Lisbon land at Campanhã, not São Bento, so don’t wait on the wrong platform. Spend the rest of the day adjusting to the fact that this isn’t a smaller Lisbon: “tripeiros” (tripe-eaters, a 1415 nickname locals wear with pride), Portuguese that isn’t Spanish, and bom dia, boa tarde, obrigado or obrigada correctly gendered, noticed more here than in the bigger tourist zones down south.
Day 2: Douro Valley, out and settled in
Give it two full days rather than cramming it into one; a single day out here is mostly transit with tastings squeezed around the edges. The regional train from São Bento or Campanhã to Pinhão runs about two hours each way, roughly 12.20 EUR one-way, through terraced vineyard hillsides that are worth the trip on their own. Spend the first afternoon at a quinta near Pinhão and stay over (Quinta da Pacheca’s wine-barrel rooms, or The Vintage House in Pinhão with river-view balconies from roughly 180 to 250 EUR, verify at booking).
Day 3: Douro Valley, the second day
Use day two for a river cruise or a second winery before the train back. Book rooms and tastings ahead in the warmer months, since both fill up.
Day 4: Guimarães and Braga
Combine both into a single day; they sit close enough to each other and to Porto that splitting them across separate days just adds travel time you don’t need. Guimarães gives you the Paço dos Duques (5 EUR alone, 8 EUR combined with the castle, 10am to 6pm, last entry 5:30) and the birthplace-of-Portugal story. Braga gives you the Bom Jesus do Monte sanctuary and the oldest working hydraulic funicular in the world (1882, about 1.50 EUR one way, bought at the station, no advance booking needed).
Day 5: Aveiro
The “Venice of Portugal” tag oversells it, but the moliceiro canal boats and Costa Nova’s striped houses a short bus ride further out are genuinely worth a half day, about an hour from Porto by train.
Day 6: Coimbra
Coimbra earns the full day the others don’t. Portugal’s old university city sits 70 to 80 minutes from Porto on the Alfa Pendular or Intercidades, and the historic university itself is worth building a whole day around rather than a passing photo stop.
Day 7: Lisbon, or why I’d skip the day trip
Here’s the honest math on Lisbon. The Alfa Pendular from Campanhã takes 2 hours 50 minutes each way, and as of January 2026 that runs about 35.70 EUR one-way in standard class. Round trip, that’s close to six hours of train time for maybe four or five hours actually in the city, and I don’t think it’s worth it as a bolt-on day. If you’ve got a full week and Lisbon genuinely matters to you, the better move is to swap this last day for a one-way ticket south and fly home from Lisbon instead of looping back to Porto, treating it as its own destination rather than a rushed afternoon. If you’d rather stay put, spend day seven doing whichever stop from this week you’d go back to first, and close it out with a Douro red or vinho verde, not port, which is a dessert wine here, not a table one.