I am officially retiring on March 29th (yay!), then we will be flying out from Denver on the 30th for a scouting trip in the month of April. We will be staying in Coimbra, but will be looking in the areas of Alcobaca and Setubal. It will probably be late 2023 before we actually make the move to Portugal, but want to have a very good idea at least which town we would like to settle in. We have really been drawn to these two areas from the research we have done, especially because we would prefer to live in a smaller town yet in fairly close proximity to Lisbon. Looking for any feedback from anyone who has had experience spending time in either of these towns, or any others in those areas.
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Mar 08, 2023 3:12 am
11 Replies
Mar 08, 2023 8:37 am
I spent a few days in Coimbra but found it wasn't for me. It's way to hilly and its a university town so its packed with noisy students most of the time. It is however one of the cheaper areas to rent in when I was initially considering it as a potential location to live and it does have a lot of beautiful green places to visit.
Mar 08, 2023 10:02 am
Congratulations on the upcoming retirement! We have been living in Lisbon for 14 months now. We have traveled down to the Algarve, Porto, Tomar, all around Lisbon area north of the river and the Silver Coast.
We really like Sintra, Estoril, Carcavelos and that area for being close to Lisbon. We are now working on traveling the coast down to Setubal to see how it compares.
Mar 08, 2023 1:04 pm
Thank you both for your input! It has felt like a waiting game since we first decided we wanted to move, but now there will at least be some movement. I can't wait to be back in Portugal. We fell in love with it the first time we were there in 2017, and again in 2019. Now we have a goal and look forward to being in this beautiful country again, this time knowing we want to make it our home.
@wjjkmorris I've been to Setubal a few times.... it was a bit too sleepy for me. That said, there is a pretty big difference weather-wise between Coimbra and Setubal.... you may want to be sure you understand how the two locations differ in winter and summer. I prefer sunny wam winters myself.
@lowellmk Thank you. When we originally booked our stay in Coimbra, we did so because it was centrally located. Since that time we heard that the weather was much cooler and rainy than we had anticipated, so we revised our search in the areas of Setubal and Alcobaca. We do prefer a warmer, sunnier climate. And we are looking for a slower-paced lifestyle so we are hoping both of these will be closer to what we are looking for. On our two prior trips to Portugal, we hadn't visited with the mindset that we might someday want to live there. So we're going over with open minds for a place to settle. So many choices!
@wjjkmorris In general, Portugal is a much slower pace of life than what we find in the US....even in Lisbon. I love the slower pace there. Regarding the more northern regions of Portugal, what you may not know is that it's not only cooler but much more damp. The dampness is an issue in older homes - think mold and mildew. You'll see a lot of buildings with black mildew on the exteriors, too. If you haven't done so, you may want to explore the Alentejo coast.....Setebul is in Alentejo but there are plenty of lovely choices with stunning coastlines stretching down to The Algarve. The transportation infrastructure is great.....weather it's trains or roadways. I think the hardest nut to crack is finding the place that sings the loudest to you. One last thought... have you investigated either of the Autonomous Regions (Azores and Madeira)? Each offers much of what we are all looking for but are a little unique in their own way!
@lowellmk While I was pondering these matters, I spent some time looking at weather record maps from the Instituto Português do Mar e da Atmosfera. From those maps, coastal Portugal between say Porto and Setúbal seems pretty similar, within a couple degrees. I'm not saying they're the same, but it's all warmer than northern California and colder and wetter in the winter than southern California. By the time you get down to the Algarve, there's a little more difference, and you can see that in the vegetation and so forth. Or if you were farther into the interior. But while I like warm sunny weather, and I did like Setúbal, or rather the Azeitão area, I don't think it's going to be massively different here in Pombal (about half way between Leiria and Coimbra.) Yes, it rained all winter, but where didn't it?
@lowellmk Yes, it rained all winter, but where didn't it?
In the algarve, we barely had rain this winter, and usually we have much less rain than the rest of the country.
Mar 16, 2023 8:47 pm
My husband, another couple and I are renting a house about 12 miles north of Tomar the second half of April. We did a scouting trip last July and thought that Coimbra was too steep for us as well, although the countryside around there is beautiful. We feel in love with the charm of Tomar and like having the river and nearby beach for sunning / boating. Coimbra is only about 50 minutes north of Tomar and the ocean at Nazare is only about 50 minutes away as well. Coimbra has some wonderful restaurants / shops / Fado music (we liked it better than the Lisbon Fado), but we found that an Uber driver is the way to go for getting around the heart of the city (leave your car parked at the outskirts of the city 😉 ).
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