7 Days: Porto and the Douro Valley
A full week is, in my opinion, the right amount of time to stop thinking of Porto as a city break and start treating it as what it actually is, the front door to the rest of Portugal. This version takes you from the vineyard terraces of the Douro all the way down to Lisbon, with real breathing room at both ends. Here’s the plan.
Book these before you go
- Douro Valley day trip and overnight options : the train-plus-cruise combos sell out in summer
- A quinta room around Pinhao : estate rooms book up weeks ahead in high season
- A Lisbon hotel for the last two nights : book ahead if your open-jaw flight is already locked in
| Day | Focus |
|---|---|
| 1 | Linha do Douro train to Pinhao, quinta tasting and overnight |
| 2 | A second quinta morning, back to Porto |
| 3 | Guimaraes and Braga, back to back |
| 4 | Aveiro, the lighter day |
| 5 | Coimbra, then south for good |
| 6 | Lisbon, settle in |
| 7 | Lisbon, done properly |
Day 1: land and head straight for the vines
Flying in, the Violeta Line E metro runs from OPO to Sao Bento or Campanha in 30 to 45 minutes. Arriving overland from Lisbon or elsewhere, you’ll land at Campanha instead, not the tiled Sao Bento station everyone photographs, the two sit about 3km apart, so head straight for your connection rather than looking for azulejos on the wrong platform. Catch the Linha do Douro regional train out to Pinhao, roughly two hours each way for about 12.20 EUR, one of the finest scenic rail rides in Europe, following the river through terraced vineyard hillsides the whole way. Pinhao’s 1937 station has 24 azulejo panels of the grape harvest on its platform walls, worth a look before an afternoon tasting at Quinta do Bomfim or Quinta das Carvalhas, both an easy walk away. Book an overnight room at a working quinta, Quinta da Pacheca and Quinta do Vallado both take estate guests, rather than rushing back to Porto the same day.
Day 2: one more valley morning, back to Porto
Take the morning slow at the quinta, maybe a second tasting, before the roughly two-hour train back. Once you’re in the city, worth being precise about something people constantly get wrong: the port lodges across the Dom Luis I Bridge in Vila Nova de Gaia are the aged, bottled product, a completely different trip from the vineyard region you were just in, don’t let anyone conflate the two on this trip or any other. An evening walk along the Gaia riverfront makes a good, low-key close to the day.
Day 3: Guimaraes and Braga, back to back
Guimaraes, about 45 minutes out by train, earns its “birthplace of Portugal” label honestly, the medieval castle here is reputedly where the country’s first king, Afonso Henriques, was born, and a wall nearby reads “Aqui Nasceu Portugal,” here Portugal was born. Braga sits at a similar distance and combines naturally with Guimaraes in a single day rather than needing its own separate trip. Bom Jesus do Monte’s zigzagging Baroque staircase, full of fountains and statues, is the reason to go, ride the funicular up if your legs need a break, it’s one of the oldest water-powered funiculars still running anywhere. Back to Porto for the evening.
Day 4: Aveiro, the lighter day
About an hour by train, Aveiro earns its “Venice of Portugal” nickname from its canal network and colourful moliceiro boats, once used to haul seaweed, now mostly ferrying visitors along the same water. Push another 10 to 15 minutes by bus out to Costa Nova and you’ll find a row of candy-striped fishing houses that look almost too coordinated to be real. It’s a genuinely different, quirkier register after three days of medieval towns and wine terraces.
Day 5: Coimbra, then south for good
Here’s my honest opinion, and it’ll save you a needless backtrack: since you’re heading to Lisbon anyway, don’t do Coimbra as a round trip from Porto, break your southbound journey there instead. Coimbra sits almost exactly halfway between the two cities, about an hour and a quarter from Porto by Alfa Pendular. The University of Coimbra is UNESCO listed, and the Biblioteca Joanina, a baroque library ornate enough to look invented, is the reason everyone stops here, complete with a resident colony of bats that come out at night to eat the insects that would otherwise damage centuries-old books, a genuine, deliberate part of how the collection is protected, not a tall tale. There’s no library-only ticket, you buy a combined pass covering the library, the Royal Palace and Saint Michael’s Chapel, and the library entry runs small-group and timed, book online before you travel since slots do sell out. Continue on to Lisbon from here, another hour and a half to two hours, arriving in the evening.
Day 6: Lisbon, settle in
This is the whole point of taking seven days over six, you get two real days in Lisbon instead of one rushed one. I won’t rewrite a Lisbon guide inside a Porto itinerary, but spend today settling in on the riverfront and the historic core once you’ve arrived from Coimbra.
Day 7: Lisbon, done properly
Spend your second day on whichever neighbourhood or day trip pulled you to Lisbon in the first place. Concrete tip worth real money: check whether your airline allows an open-jaw booking, flying into Porto and out of Lisbon, most do as standard, and it saves you an entire day you’d otherwise burn backtracking north just to catch a flight from where you started.
Getting around across the week
Every regional and intercity train on this route runs on standard Comboios de Portugal fares, separate from Porto’s city Andante card, so budget them independently, roughly 3-8 EUR each way for Guimaraes, Braga or Aveiro, 12-15 EUR for the Douro, more again for the Coimbra to Lisbon leg. Book the Douro train and your quinta room ahead in summer, they genuinely sell out, and don’t try to squeeze Guimaraes-Braga and Aveiro into the same day, they pull in different directions from Porto.
Before you go
If you’d rather keep this trip tighter, our 6-day itinerary runs the identical route with one less day in Lisbon. And if none of this has touched Porto’s own historic centre, that’s by design, this whole family of guides is built around what’s beyond the city limits, so read our Porto city guide separately when it’s the city itself you want to focus on.