Thanks Lynne. Looks like we'll be criss-crossing each other with some overlapping time with each other! We're starting in the Algarve, ending up in Cascais, same timeshare, with a week in between for Porto and Douro Valley.
Originally I thought we'd spend a couple of nights in Porto, but today I decided we should stop in Aveiro for a couple of nights on the way north, where there are some scenic canals and lagoons ... park the car at our hotel there, and make a full day trip into Porto by train, it's about an hour away. Then after those 2 nights, head towards Pinhao and points east. This will spare us the stress and hassle of inner-city driving, parking, luggage schlepping etc. It's less time in Porto but mostly I wanted to see the river area, and take in an old town walking tour, and I think we can do that in a day.
That's today's idea at any rate. Hope I'm not short-changing our time in Porto, so I may keep reading. After Aveiro, I've got us booked into a house in a vineyard above Pinhao for 3 nights, and then 2 nights at a quinta near Foz Coa Archaeological Park which we want to visit at the end of the Douro Valley. There are so many possibilities, obviously we can't do them all. I could come up with a different idea by tomorrow of course.
I think we're going to keep our car during our week at Cascais, are you? We'd have the option of turning it in early, but I have it booked til the end of our stay, imagining we'll use train into Lisbon a couple of times and then do other things. I've hardly started planning that last week yet.