Best Small Group Tours of Portugal

We were very fortunate to be able to do the Food & Wine experience in Portugal from 6- 13 July 24. Cris(tiane) was very helpful during the booking process and responded quickly to all my emails. Once everything was booked and paid, we could literally sit back and relax… and enjoy. As a foreigner, it is sometimes scarry to travel, but all the arrangements went as planned and advertised. From the pick-ups and drop-offs at airports, to transport from one hotel to the next, or during daily excursions, they were punctual and effecient. Comfortable and luxurious vehicles and friendly drivers. Very high quality accommodation. The sightseeing’s were amazing and the guides were very knowledgeable and thorough. Food and wine tastings were great and mostly more than we could handle. So prepare to buy bigger clothes on your return! I can highly recommend EcoTrilha Portugal Tours and Cristiane Fonte. With this level of service, the business will grow and prosper.

Just a quick note to say thanks for the tour of Portugal. We really enjoyed the trip; it was exciting and took in everything we hoped to see [the day in The Douro Valley was special] and I will be recommending it to our travel agent. Phil and Rhonda were great company too - we were very lucky. I must say the dinner we had at Inato was really good and probably one of the best we had during our travel. You live in an exciting place!

This was my best trip I ever went using a tour. Usually I do not like a tour because of the minute by minute itinerary. But this trip was fantastic. I can’t recommend it enough. Our tour guide was wonderful. Very informative,funny and everything you want a tour guide to be. I had the best time and I can’t wait to use them again. if you want the trip of a lifetime -use this tour group. You will not be disappointed. The knowledge, hotel selection, itinerary, selection, and conversations could not be beat. Thank you for this most enjoyable trip.

Excellent tour and guide/host. Nothing like a local to personally escort you through Lisbon, Porto, Braga, Coimbra and more. Each more spectacular as you go. This was a personal tour at exceptional value for money prices (less than the larger tour companies). Accomodation was 4 star, situated each time in the centre of the older section of the city. This enabled you to soak up the atmosphere, easy walking to local sights while always feeling safe and secure. Chris is a wonderful host and tour guide. Gracious, informative, friendly and knowledgeable. A fantastic tour from the airport pick up to airport drop off and everything in between. We thoroughly recommend Chris and Eco Trilha for any trip to lovely Portugal.

We loved Braga and Cristiane loved sharing her hometown. Honestly, every city we visited with her was wonderful and she is very good about sharing a lot of interesting information and allowing you time to look and take pictures. We had 2 days in the country which was a wonderful surprise complete with a chef, bread making, wine tasting, and a 7-mile hike. Cristiane has a wonderful sense of humor, cares about her clients and pays attention deal. She even road to the airport when we left to say goodbye. It is obvious she truly loves what she does and it shows. We are wanting to go back and we highly recommend her and cannot say enough great things!

The trip was a great combination of time on our own to explore and directed time with a guide. We visited things we would not have known about at all, and it was amazing! We loved trying the pastries in every town we visited as well. Porto was fantastic, and I would return gladly. The time at Casa de Li was wonderful and again something we would have never found on our own. Vasco was a great host and cook. Our pickup from the airport went very smoothly, we were shocked as our flight was 3 hours late! We were so pleased that our guide, Chris, met us at the hotel to be sure check-in went well, and to give a little help getting our bearings.

Our tour guides were well informed, personable, and delightful. We had a friendly group and excellent accommodations. I bought online Portugal Vacation Package. Everything was perfect! I loved the wine tour and tasting, but especially memorable was our day in the Douro Valley. All in all, a fabulous trip — go to Portugal!

One of our best trips ever. We had never been to Portugal, and we were looking for a small tour to give us a genuine insight into Portugal and the Portuguese. Cristiane gave us all of that and more. We experienced Portugal’s history, food culture, it’s nature, and experiences that we would never have found. The special outings to make traditional northern Portuguese corn/rye bread in a wood-burning oven in the middle of their National Park with horses and cattle running free, the sardine factory of one of the oldest still hand-done sardine factories, the olive oil tasting, the chocolate tasting, our stay at a boutique hotel in Arcos de Valdevez with a trained chef preparing delicious meals, the trip to Pinhao in the Douro with a visit to the famous Port Quinta and the boat ride down the Douro. I could go on and on. Cristiane wants to make sure you have an exceptional experience. We will never forget the incredible tour with Cristiane.

Maureen & I want to thank Cristiane for her professionalism, her vast knowledge and the personal touches she gave us on our tour. We had a wonderful time! Cristiane kept it relaxed and informative and picked great restaurants! Thank you again for a very memorable trip!

Cris, Thank you for a wonderful tour and for looking after us so well!

We took an amazing tour with EcoTrilha! Cristiane was a thoughtful guide who knows the good places to go (and where to avoid) and provided us with information about the rich history if Portugal, the amazing sites that we saw with her, as well as answered our many many questions on random things. She also provided information to help out planning and took great care of us. Highly recommend spending your time with Cristiane seeing and learning about Portugal!

Such a pleasure to travel with you Cris. So wonderful to know you and have you teach us!

My wife and I spent a week in Portugal with Cristiane and EcoTrilha Tours. It was a wonderful vacation. Everything was very well arranged. The hotels were clean, comfortable, and in nice locations. The sights that we saw, and the experiences that Cristiane arranged for us were all interesting, fun, and just a great way to see Portugal. I can give EcoTrilha tours my absolute highest recommendation, and strongly suggest that you contact them if you are planning a visit to Portugal.

Thank you to Cristiane for making our family’s trip to Portugal so enjoyable and memorable. Everything from the drivers to the hotels to guides was five stars! We never had to wait in line and were treated like royalty. It was fabulous! We had never been to Portugal and left feeling like we learned so much.

Very well organised and full of interesting experiences.

Everything about the trip was wonderful. If you want an experience of the parts of Portugal the locals love, book anything with Eco Trilha. We went to the best restaurants and tastings. Our experience with chef Vasco in Arcos de Valdevez was incredible. He opened his doors and treated us like family. This is not a bus tour with a group listening on a headset. Cristiane is professional in every way and provided an incomparable experience.

Cris our guide was excellent, gave personalized and friendly service. We were given ample time to discover the places we visited and Cris was there with us all the way. Highly recommended for tourists who wish to discover Portugal off the beaten tracks. The visit to the hotel owned by the 1st Masterchef of Portugal was memorable, especially the cooking workshops. Thumbs up!!

We enjoyed all of the locations we visited, the great food and wine, the rich culture & interesting history of Portugal... Have I mentioned that it was a FABULOUS holiday?! Thanks for coordinating, booking, confirming and generally taking care of our requests in planning our adventure. Highly recommended and I would definitely book Eco Trilha again.

My 24-year-old daughter and I spent a wonderful week in Portugal in January on the Culture and Cooking Tour and are so grateful to Cristiane for putting together the perfect adventure. We had so many experiences that we otherwise wouldn't have had on our own a walk through the UNESCO neighborhood of Porto, olive oil and wine tastings, discovering some of her favorite historical and culinary places. Because she hired drivers during some days, we could relax and cover a lot more territory than you would expect and got to see Lisbon, Porto, Sintra, some small villages, the coast, and the mountains. We'd love to take our family back for one of her Douro Valley tours as well. Highly recommended!

Christiane is very professional, always on time, flexible with tour arrangements, and knowledgeable about different ways to experience Portuguese culture. I was impressed by the amount of personal assistance she offered us. She went the extra mile to make sure we were taken care of; for example, finding a place to get Covid tests. We would happily take another tour with her.

Overall, the organisation at Eco Trilha was very good and they were on time, every time. The guides were excellent (Pedro won our award) and being a small group, they were patient and flexible - my wife is an avid photographer and they were willing to point out features or wait a short time while she took pics.

We booked our "Best of Portugal" 7-day holiday through Slow Tours. As my husband and I were the only people booked on this tour date, we were lucky enough to have Cristianne from Eco Trilha as our "private" tour guide for most of the time. Andre was our other wonderful guide for a couple of days in Porto and the Douro Valley. Cris and Andre both spoke English well and were reliable, organized, and helpful. They were thoughtful and generous with their time, their local knowledge, and the imparting of historical facts. We visited Lisbon, Nazare, Fatima, Porto, the Douro Valley, and Braga. Each place was very different, with its own charm and places of interest. Among other great memories from this trip, we will never forget Sintra and the Pena Palace, the traditional fish drying on the beach of Nazare, the unexpected impact of Fatima, cruising the Douro river, and enjoying a Pastel de Belem! However, we never felt rushed. Our hotels and transport were clean and comfortable. We would be very happy to recommend Cris and her company Eco Trilha to anyone looking to travel through Portugal.

Our tour guides were well informed, personable, and delightful. We had a friendly group and excellent accommodations. I bought online Portugal Vacation Package. Everything was perfect! I loved the wine tour and tasting, but especially memorable was our day in the Douro Valley. All in all, a fabulous trip — go to Portugal!

Our Portugal small group tour was flawless thanks to Christiane & her team. From the time we were met in the Lisbon airport until we departed from Braga 7 days later everything was well done / on time, organized, great communication and excellent recommendations for restaurants etc. We found Christiane flexible and accommodating. We wish we would have spent more time in Porto and less time in Braga, but we didn’t know that until experiencing it all. We would definitely recommend Eco Trilha tours.

5-star! Thank you so much! This was really a great experience!

The cooking classes were a highlight of our trip! Learning to make traditional Portuguese dishes in a countryside setting was unforgettable.

I was lucky enough to take the 7 day tour as a solo traveller in March 2025. It was the off season but lucky for me two other travellers signed up meaning we had a really small group and very personal experience. It was such a well thought out and put together package, from the moment you’re picked up at the Lisbon airport everything is smooth sailing. There’s a lot of “on your own dinners” but at every city Christaine sends a comprehensive list of restaurant suggestions so you’ll never feel lost or actually on your own. There’s two night in the countryside included which really breaks up the big city overwhelm and you get to see the Portugal’s national park which as a tourist not driving I would have never gotten to see otherwise. By the time you reach Porto you will have seen and fallen in love with Portuguese tiles and be keen to get your hands on the real thing (without risking cheap knock offs or illegally collected ones) I recommend checking out Fernandes, Mattos & Ca on your free morning before departing Porto to get these plus checking out lots of other Portuguese’s designer products. If you’re interested in this tour you’re probably keen to avoid tourist crapy souvenirs Christine will direct you to authentic shops along the way to pick up truly unique pieces to take home. Now the big draw card, the food. If you take this tour you are going to be very happy food wise. Christaine will be taking you all the tucked away from the tourists gems at every opportunity, she has really taken the time to personally research everything on the tour right down to taste testing ALL the canned sardines and choosing the best factory to visit. Take this tour to experience authentic Portuguese food that locals actually eat and dishes you won’t get back home. Coming from Sydney Australia I have access to a lot of quality international foods so I’m always looking for ways to access truly new food menus not just the big ticket items because really I can eat a lot of great Portuguese tarts within 15 mins of my home address. If you’re lucky enough to do a private tour with Christiane I would take the 7 days tour as the base but add the following. An afternoon walking tour in Lisbon as your first / orientation experience possibly in the Almfa neighbourhood (if timing aligns consider the flea market or a fado experience). Spend a little more time in the Sanctuary of Bom Jesus do Monte then have the late afternoon/dinner free in Braga and move the Braga city tour to the morning after as your last activity. By the time our group arrived in Braga we had a bit of information overload and probably didn’t take in the history as much as we should as we were all eager for an early dinner. On your first day in the countryside your host will have the option of various levels of river side / wildness walking, as a private tour you would be able to opt for the longer walks I would have loved to do more but the fitness level of a group will dictate how much can be done.

Thank you for a memorable food and wine tour of Portugal! The tour was a wonderful way for Cecile and I to celebrate a special birthday year, especially since we ended up having a private tour! I enjoyed all the food tastings and experiences and the relaxing stay at Casa Da Li was a real highlight . Spending time indoors for the cooking workshops from Chef Vasco was definitely the best way to spend a rainy day! Thank you for your hospitality and for sharing your personal stories and views of life in Portugal. It added to the experience and made the tour more personal than the usual group tours.