If you are visiting Spain, it is obvious to squeeze a side trip to Portugal on your vacation. Portugal is much cheaper than Spain and culturally quite different from its larger neighbor.
Although most visitors head directly to Lisbon, the capital, for many the biggest draw is Porto, with its famous port wine production. There are excellent day trips worth taking from Porto and connections are good to get to Galicia in northern Spain.
The easiest way to get there
Madrid and Porto are poorly connected by bus and train, with a ten-hour bus trip being the only land route. It doesn’t even make much sense to split the trip, as the best options along the way are Salamanca in Spain or Coimbra in Portugal, but the travel times are still long. Both cities are famous college towns with beautiful architecture and a vibrant student scene and are worthy stops in their own right, but they don’t really save you in no time.
If there are no stops along the way that interest you, a good suggestion would be to fly either to Porto itself or to Lisbon and take the train from Lisbon to Porto.
Airplane
There are regular flights from Porto to Madrid with Ryanair. Always be careful when booking with Ryanair, as costs can get out of control if you’re not careful.
Porto airport is well connected to the city center by metro, which makes flying an easy option and much faster than any other form of transport.
Bus and train
It is a ten hour drive from Porto to Madrid. The route is run by ALSA. The bus stops in Salamanca and Aveiro along the way, both worthy stops if you don’t want to take the whole trip non-stop.
There are no direct trains. If you have a rail pass and want to travel by train, you will need to change in Coimbra or go to Lisbon first.
Car
The 600 km (373 mile) drive from Porto to Madrid takes about six hours. Take the A7, A24, A-52, A-6. These are toll roads. Go through Salamanca and consider a little detour to Coimbra.
