A two night stay at a rural hotel, Convento São Paolo near Redondo and about 20 minutes drive from Évora. This hotel was selected as part of our walking tour booked through Portugal Walks. We started with three nights at the local tour company’s farm centre, Monte do Serrado de Baixo. The company Turaventur offers cycling and walking tours as well as accommodation. They were great!
https://www.turaventur.com/m/index.php

Évora - hike along the 16th century aqueduct into Évora, and a walk to see several megaliths.

Monsaraz - a hilltop town with menhirs and stone circles nearby.

Merida Spain - wonderful Roman town centre antiquities including a theatre and amphitheater. The museum is fabulous - well laid out and good mosaics.

Porto - we were there five nights and the highlights were a food walking tour, a train trip along the Douro River to Pinhão, a visit to a winery for a tasting - Quinta do Panascal that produces Fonseca port (took a taxi from Pinhão - about 10 euros each way), a boat ride an hour upstream to Tua and back, and a visit to a port wine lodge in across the river from Porto in Gaia. (Ferreira).

Coimbra - we chose a hotel up the hill near the university but food is down. If you are going, you might consider staying at the Ibis near the town centre train station and river. Not as personalized as our B&B but we did a lot of climbing! The university tour was interesting and so was the Museu National Machado de Castro. We had one too many days here. We visited the Roman archaeological site, Conímbriga but we have seen better. Even Ostia Antica near Rome is much better for the non-specialist.

We saw all three of the UNESCO heritage sites that cluster around Leiria in the centre if Portugal. The most stunning is in Tomar, with a chapel modelled on the church in Jerusalem. The castle of the Knights Templar and Convent of Christ. The town is cute too.

We visited the other two as day trips from Leiria - Batalha and Alcobaça. The unfinished cloisters and chapel of Batalha were particularly interesting because the work was abandoned to build in Belem (we visited the monastery there while in Lisbon). The buildings are adorned with intricate Manueline carvings but Tomar wins!

Alcobaça gave you a good idea what the monastery would have been like during its heyday, with a huge chimney and stoves. We also had award winning pastry and later an excellent lunch at a Michelin recommended restaurant. (Not starred though!)

In Lisbon, we enjoyed the Gulbenkian museum (permanent collection) and Belem’s monastery (Jeronimo), and a walk to see several miradors (lookouts) as well as a few fine buildings, both with commemorative tombs or monuments. We took one “elevadores” and two trams!

On our last day we went to Sintra and visited Pena palace and the Moorish castle. Pena was jammed! We thought we had started early enough, had bought our ticket online, but still had to wait more than an hour to get into the palace itself. The exterior is amusing though. Glad we brought sandwiches with us - picked them up at a padaria when we had breakfast.

As you see, we didn’t visit the Azores or other islands nor the Algarve. Also some other intriguing sounds towns near Porto. Another trip!

We travelled by train and bus. For those we could book ahead we did. Our transport ranged from the high speed pendular train from Porto to Coimbra and slow trains through Elvas, Badajoz, and Entroncamento. Regional buses were great, bookable through the Rede Expressos app. New equipment, free wifi and seat belts. Local services were not bookable but worked!