Portugal Itinerary for 7 days

One Week Portugal Itinerary in Rs 1,20,000 or 1500€

Want to watch our Portugal Itinerary- Here it is

We decided to do our Portugal Trip in the month of July 2020 amid the pandemic. It was a very sudden decision we both took. We were in two minds whether to make the trip by car or by flight. A car trip from Frankfurt to Lisbon would have been an over ambitious cross country trip. Nonetheless, we decided to make the trip by flight. The reason we write this blog is to help you understand, no matter where you live in this world. If you are looking forward to having an 8-day long holiday and planning Portugal. Then this can probably help you plan your trip in advance and you can also make some variations accordingly.

This itinerary covers Lisbon, the main capital city of Portugal, and Algarve, a scenic beach location to the south of Portugal. Before you read further, we are an Indian couple based in Frankfurt and this itinerary will suit the needs of a couple or a family with kids.

I am assuming wherever you are in this world. First thing book, a two-way flight ticket to Lisbon.

In case you arrive from any other European country (keep it 8 days)--

You arrive on Day1 in Lisbon and you leave on Day8 from Lisbon.

In case you are planning this trip from Outside Europe (make it 9 days)--

Considering you are making a flight journey from anywhere else outside Europe. Please make it a 9-day trip (Ideal plan would be that you fly on a Friday, reach Lisbon next Saturday and then spend days until the next week Sunday in Portugal and then take the return flight on Sunday from Lisbon and reach back wherever you stay on a Monday.). This 1 extra day at the beginning of this trip will help you overcome the jetlag and also prepare you for your 8-day rejuvenating ride.

I am assuming you are making this trip in the summer season. Without wasting much time, let's get into the details. If you have arrived at this blog directly, there is a surprise for you at the end.

Day1.1 ➤ If arriving from outside the EU in Lisbon, then take a break, get a cheap hotel. The best bet would be finding one through www.booking.com. Stay until Day1.2

Day1.2 ➤ Arrive at the airport, rent a car, and drive for 2.5 hours directly to Portimao, a city in Algarve, which has one of the biggest beach known as 'Praia da Rocha'. Check in to your Airbnb. Shop for essentials, while you stay in Portugal

Day2 ➤ Visit the beach, make sure you get some sun in the morning, head for lunch to the shack, return to your Airbnb, take some rest, cook a good dinner and take a walk at the promenade and sleep to get charged. Do not make this day stressful.

Day3 ➤ Get up for the Boat ride to Bengil Caves at 9 AM. Finish it by 11AM. Drive to Armacao de Pera for a lunch at Ze Leiteiro. Spend sometime until the evening on the beach and then return back to Portimao. Spend the evening strolling along the Promenade

Day4 ➤ Drive to Praia Do Carvoeiro, have a walk along the Carvoeiro boardwalk until the Boneca Bar, have lunch, click some Instagram shots and buy souvenirs, then drive back to Portimao for spending the rest of the day at Beach and take a walk to the lighthouse.

Day5 ➤ Eat your lunch, checkout from your Airbnb, and drive back to Lisbon. Try to reach Lisbon by 1500 hrs and then freshen up and go to Praca do Comercio, the main city center walking (not by car) from their walk until the legendary Cervejaria Ramiro, one of its kind seafood place. After dinner walks back to your Airbnb.

Day6 ➤ Drive from Lisbon to Sintra and visit the Pena Palace. Try to reach there by 9.30 AM. Then take the bus from Sintra city center, or if you fancy a tuk-tuk to Pena Palace directly. Then from Pena palace head for a sumptuous lunch at Tascantiga. Then from Sintra drive to Cabo da Roca. Spend some quality time and head back to Lisbon for a boat tour in the evening at Marina Doca da Alcantara.

Day7 ➤ Eat Lunch at Airbnb and start exploring Lisbon, travel on Tram 28. Go on the elevator da Santa Justa for an overview of the Lisbon city. Walk to Timeout Market for the famous Pastel de Nata. Then take the ferry to visit the restaurant Ponte Final. ( Check on Netflix, 'Somebody Feed Phil')

Day8 ➤ Return back your rental car and have a safe flight back home.

On Day 1.1-

Flight

I will assume you have booked your return flight tickets to Lisbon. If you still need some ideas about cheap flights. Go to the travel aggregator comparison site 'skyscanner.com' and book yourself a cheap flight. Let's say you depart on a Friday and arrive on Saturday.

Car Rental

This is a very important part of this holiday. Go to 'Carrentals.com' and book your car online. You will need your EU Driving License (at least 1-year-old) / Passport/ Credit Card in Driver's name (for Europeans) or International Driving Permit / English Translated Driving License (at least 1-year-old)/ Passport / Credit Card in Driver's name (Non-Europeans) when you reach the booking counter. We booked our car with a company Interrent GC. You will find the desk for this company at the very end of the airport near the parking. This is not located directly where the big companies are having their desk.

We booked ourselves a modest Ford Fiesta, but due to the unavailability, we were given a FIAT 500. This was really small to fit our luggage. So we told them simply it does not work and we got an upgrade to FIAT 500x. This was a compact SUV. A tip, just change the onboard computer of the language of the car to your desired one before you start for the journey. Portuguese is difficult to comprehend even if it has Latin alphabets.

The total cost for the car rental including full insurance was around 216,93 € and gasoline for the entire trip was 97€. In all, it was 313€.

The Interrent GC Car Rental Desk

Our Ride for the next 8 days in Portugal

Hotel

Book a hotel for just one night, your best bet here is booking a hotel. Do not go for Airbnb just for one day. As you will not be cooking after that tiring journey and will be around the same price as a hotel would be (another challenge would be syncing your arrival with a host of Airbnb). Book a hotel, without any fuss from 'booking.com'. Since you just need a place to rest for the night, it is better if you book it on the outskirts. On average, a medium-range hotel per night would set you back anything between 75€ to 115€. A private room in a hostel would set you back between 30€ to 90€. Being a couple maybe you can still do with a hostel around the city center but then let me remind, that you have a rental car to park on the streets and you have to spend the day on a bunk bed probably. You can book the hostel room from 'hostelworld.com'.

My recommendation would be to try this hotel right near the airport (3.3 km to be precise ). Would set back 2 adults and 1 kid by 85€ per night. This is from 'Booking.com'

On Day 1.2 -

We departed from Frankfurt at 9 AM and reached Lisbon by 12 PM. Quickly we freshened up and then went on to the car rental. The car rental process took 30 minutes and we were on our way to this small city 'Portimao' in South Algarve. In Portimao, we had booked an Airbnb for us from 'airbnb.com'. We booked the below place for 4 days. It was a sweet deal for such a nice apartment 2 minutes from the beach. We spent a whole day deciding on this place, and it was well worth it. Our Airbnb

This Airbnb also has a basement garage, which was easy for us to park the vehicle. We then went shopping for groceries at CONTINENTE. This is a very big supermarket, you will know once you are there. All along the way, we had google maps to help us with navigation. We bought ourselves groceries worth 62€ that included rice, lentils, chicken, fish, veggies, cooking oil, salt, juices, bread, spread, watermelon, eggs, snacks, beer, coke, black tea bags, cookies, and some bottled water. Shop what you may eat, this budget can vary between 60€ to 1000€ for a family of 2 adults and 2 kids. Oh well! Since I am an Indian we carried some spices like the basic (turmeric, chili, coriander, and cumin powder). You can also get it here but then search for the right Portuguese name.

The Supermarket at Portimao

Our Food Haul from Continente for the whole 8-day trip

The rest of the day we spent time cooking dinner and taking rest and absorbing the holiday feeling. Our host was a super host, she was very nice and welcoming. She also provided us with towels for the beach and an umbrella. So you need not bring one.

On Day2 -

We decided to start our day2 with a run from our Airbnb to a nearby beach.

After the run, we made some simple breakfast of bread, eggs, and spread. Of course, some morning black tea with biscuits is a must for us. Then we headed directly to the 'Praia da Rocha' beach (2 mins from our Airbnb) with a towel and umbrella. We spent a decent 2 hours soaking up that sun and some salty water until we got so hungry that we decided to head for our lunch at a nearby shack called 'Spot3'. Nitika had a vegetarian option 'Pasta' and I had the ever-popular 'Grilled Cod Fish', 1 large beer, orange juice, and a chocolate mousse for dessert. We paid 36€ for the whole meal and then decided to head back to our Airbnb because we were still tired for some reason.

Man drawing caricature on the streets of Portimao

In the night we had dinner from the leftovers we cooked last night and then headed for a stroll on the promenade at night along with icecream sundae (6€). One of the best decisions was this walk at night along the promenade. It's almost like Thailand's nightlife. Shopping streets open until morning the next day. Loud music everywhere and youngster rolling in the street. Froom Hookahs joint to Pubs with live music.

On Day 3 -

Day 3 was a really exciting one. We booked a boat tour beforehand for the Benagil caves. To book this boat tour, just check the Airbnb app (available on both Appstore and Google Play store) for the Airbnb experiences nearby. Or maybe you can directly call them at '00351 924 222 793' to book one. This was a 2-hour ride. Here is the coordinate on GoogleMaps for the starting point of this boat tour '37.129649, -8.531772'. The whole experience was 22€ for one person. Where they explained everything about the coast. Our host Miguel, God bless his heart, was really amazing and explained to us things in English.

One of the best experiences, in my honest opinion.

From there we headed directly to the parking of Armacao de Pera beach, where you can park your car for 2€ the entire day.

We headed here on the recommendation of our sweet friends. There is a restaurant called 'Ze Da Leitero' where we had an all you can eat seafood menu (comprising fire-grilled salmon, cod, squid, sardines) and some bread. You can also opt for some sobremesas (meaning 'dessert' in Portuguese). We had a total bill of 33€ here and left a 2€ tip (completely optional). We loved the service though. We then decided to head to the beach at this location for 2-3 hours (Reason why we kept our umbrella and towels in our car, in order to always be 'beach' ready). After which we decided to head back to Airbnb at Portimao and have home-cooked dinner and some beer to finish the day on a high note.

On Day 4 -

On our boat tour to Benagil Caves, we found out about the beach 'Praia do Carvoeiro' and the 'Carvoeiro Boardwalk' along with its coastline. This is 600 meters of wooden walkway or boardwalk running from the beach to Algar Seco ( or you can say until the restaurant 'Boneca Bar'. We started our day at 9.30 AM and drove directly to a free parking area near 'Praia Do Carvoeiro' beach. This was also one of the best decisions. The walk itself is so scenic. Along the midway through this boardwalk, you can go down below into the cliffs (wear some sneakers and carry a backpack if you can, as you would need all of your limbs to carefully walk through the cliff area :)) and get some really nice pictures like the one we took here below.

A nice gentleman took our picture overlooking the cliffs

The starting point of this Boardwalk

Legend says you get good luck inside from these cliffs if you get married here.

The famous Instagram spot.

Right near to this spot, you cannot miss this restaurant 'Boneca Bar'. We also had our lunch here. Some Piri-Piri chicken, bread olives platter, and some Pepsi. The meal was generous enough for me and my vegetarian wife. We paid a total bill of 25 euros. So it's not very expensive, for a location like this. The next thing was we again took a walk back through this boardwalk to where we started. The total walk of 1.2 km to n fro is indeed breathtaking. Seagulls flying all over make it all the more so fascinating. Next, we decided to head back to Portimao soak up some sun on the beach again. At the end of the day, we made a small walk to the lighthouse. Our timelapse of the walk to the lighthouse came out really incredible. We ended up having dinner at a restaurant 'Waterfront' outside in Portimao worth 33€ (including some sardines, tiger shrimps, beer, and coke). This was all we could do on Day4.

Piri Piri Chicken at Boneca Bar

Bread and Olives at Boneca Bar

Walk to the Lighthouse

A little friend we met on Day4

On Day 5 -

We had our lunch from leftover dinner on Day 3 and decided to check-out from our Airbnb. Our host Sofia was very responsive over Whatsapp and she was just in time to take the keys from us. She also allowed us to check out 2-3 hours later as well since no one had booked that apartment, which was very generous. We then hit the road non-stop for 2.5 hours until we reached Lisbon. In between, we made a stop (before filming the 'Vasco da Gama' bridge ) to fix a camera on top of the car and take some nature break as well. Driving inside the Lisbon city was a bit better compared to Portimao, which was almost as if I was driving in India. Our host Luis was the best super host from Airbnb we both have ever encountered. He welcomed us with a well-stocked apartment, parking space, and last but not the least port wine, chorizo, cheese (I mean who does that, I have never seen such a warm welcome). The host as more apartments in this area, the neighborhood might look shady but there were a lot of people, and its the old part of the city. We paid 200€ for 3 days. This apartment could easily host 3 adults.

The view from the apartment, building in front is called ' National Pantheon'

Portwine, Chorizo and some Cheese

Finally, we got ourselves freshened up as we did not want to miss the remaining day and planned to walk to the city center 'Praca Do Comercio' 2.2 km away. It's a vast open space with a statue of King Jose The First in between riding on his horse crushing the snakes on his path. No doubt Portugal has been one of the very rich countries in the times of 'Jack Sparrow' i guess. Then from there its a straight walk to the legendary Ramiro (Seafood Restaurant). While walking you will pass through the designer mosaic floor, covering the entire floor of this city. Ramiro was definitely a must-do on our list. We watched a video from Mark Wiens on Youtube before we planned our food adventure in Lisbon. I would say just watch it here 'Ramiro'. We paid around 85€ for the whole meal. Here is my take on the restaurant by the way and the surprise you had been waiting for. I have made an entire travel vlog during my visit to Portugal. You will be able to match this itinerary along with my 'Portugal diaries' playlist. After having dinner, we decided to head back to our Airbnb. The walk was a bit tiring due to steep climbs but well worth experiencing a new city.

Shot of the Longest Bridge in Europe

Nitika explaining the history with this square

Inside Ramiro

Amazing Seafood in Ramiro (Garlic Bread, Clams, Tiger Jumbo Prawns, Scarlett Prawns (Top to Bottom))

On Day 6 -

I know it a lot of stuff, now that I am writing it down is also getting a lot tiring. So ill keep it short and simple. You can try going to Sintra on day6 to visit the Pena Palace and from there you can go directly to Cabo Da Roca (Western Most Point of Europe). You can easily spend the whole day in Sintra visiting both the Pena Palace, Park of the Pena Palace and the Moorish Castle. But we had limited time, so we just went to Pena Palace. It's better if you reach Sintra by 9 AM. Free Parking is available in Sintra. You can either take the train from Rossio station, but better take the car. More details on ticket prices for Pena Palace can be found 'here'. There is a Scottburb Bus no. 434 that goes to Pena Palace and Moorish Castle both will cost you 6.5€ for an all-day ticket. You can either fancy taking a tuk-tuk ride from Sintra station (7.5€ pp oneway to Pena Palace). We just covered the Palace, its really beautiful with so many colors, you walk around the palace and get some really nice eagle-eye view of Sintra.

Pena Palace

Pena Palace's entry was also 7.5€ per person. Inside Pena Palace, you can find souvenir shops( tad bit costly), washrooms and cafeteria. We overheard that, Ideally the tourist count during summer is 23 million, and its a lot. This summer it was just 2 million people. We took around 3 hours to finish the palace tour and reach our lunch point using bus 434 leaving directly from Pena Palace entry to Sintra station. We had lunch at the restaurant 'Tascantiga', which was again a very good decision. Stepped in here without any reservations and found a place, seating is limited here, but just so you know they also have a takeaway menu. The food was amazing and we paid 40€ for the meal (chicken wings, codfish salad, fries, egg slide, chocolate cheesecake, 2 lemonade, 1 ice tea). You can also plan to walk the distance from Pena Palace to Tascantiga which is 2.2 km in distance, but only if you are able to finish Pena palace by 12:30.

Exploits from Tascantiga (Mushrooms, Fries, Chicken Wings, Egg Slide, Chocolate Cheese Cake)

After lunch, we decided to head on to the most scenic location I have ever encountered. Cabo da Roca is a very important landmark for sailors and the westernmost point of Europe and Eurasia. The journey from Sintra Parking to Cabo da Roca was only 35 mins. We also managed to take a short detour nearby in a quest to find a beach, but really could not make it there. Cabo da Roca is so nice, I would rather spend the day looking at sunset over there but we needed to head back for another boat tour in the evening in Lisbon. There is also a lighthouse and a souvenir shop along with a cafe. The bus 403 operated by Scottburb also goes from Sintra to Cabo da Roca. A single ticket will cost you 4.3€. More details 'here'.

Later in the day, we drove back all the way to Doca da Alahambra for our boat tour booked from Airbnb experience. The boat tour on the Tagus river was all we needed to relax. The view of the bridge '25 April' and the sunset was truly amazing. Later we finished the day having a decent sized 7 € pizza at the Marina and headed back to our Airbnb.

Boat Tour with Sunset

Marina at Doca da Alahambra

25 April Bridge on Tagus River

Cabo Da Roca

On Day 7 -

Day 7, our last day the whole day in Lisbon, was spent exploring the main attractions (Santa Justa Elevador, Tram 28 from Maritim Moniz to Campo Ouirik) and walking through its mosaic stone-paved streets. The last day I had a bit of trouble with some tooth pain, but I could not let this day go as well. We managed to have our lunch in Airbnb before we left and then drove directly to a parking place in the city center of Lisbon. Parking can get really expensive in the city center, so better if you get street parking. We walked to Santa Justa Elevador and got into a line to get up and have a 360 deg overview of the Lisbon city. You can also find a very nice cafe selling Pastel del Bacalhau (CodFish and cheese inside pastry). We decided to walk on from there to the adjoining church and from there all the way to Maritim Moniz. Maritim Moniz is where the famous tram 28 running since the 1930s can still be accessed. This tram is so popular that all across Portugal you can find a smaller version of this tram as a souvenir. During rush hours, usually, after 9 am, it gets very crowded. We decided anyhow to travel on it during the afternoon. Fortunately, it was not so crowded. Of course, you will need to be attentive to your belongings inside this tram. This Tram took us to Campo Ourike, from where Time Out market was nearby. Time Out market happens to be a place, which is like an amalgamation of all the top chefs in Lisbon. This football-field-sized auditorium hosts more than 30 different food outlets. Every outlet is dedicated to one chef, so the competition to excel is definitely intense. There are no brand outlets here. We decided to try 2 things here (Pastel del Bacalhau and Pastel de Nata ). I wish if only I could get the pastel del Nata in Frankfurt, while I am writing this. Our final stop for the day was Ponto Final in Almada. You need to take a ferry from Cais do Sodre (right opposite to TimeOutMarket) to Cacilhas, which will cost you one way around 1.25 €. Ponto Final is by far the most scenic and romantic location I have seen. The day we were visiting the restaurant, there was a man, who proposed his fiance. We had a codfish salad and a monkfish stew here. The monkfish stew was the best thing on the menu as per the reviews and we decided to try that. To be honest, I found the taste so similar to one of the fish curries my mom prepared (Aaad Maach er Jhol (a Bengali will understand this !!). I had after 10-12 years probably. This monkfish stew is enough for 2 people and a must-try in my opinion. Then we took the ferry back to Cais do Sodre to the main Lisbon area and back to our Airbnb Home.

Day 8 - On day 8, we had an early morning flight. We had to return our rental car with a full gas tank. There was a fuel pump near the Airport and returning the car was very quick and easy. I had to return the car to the same place where I took it from. So definitely mark it on your maps, so you have no confusion later on.