I learnt Portuguese in Portugal many years ago. European Portuguese is quite unusual in the way that it sounds. Written down, it's similar to Spanish, but the pronunciation sounds nothing like neighbouring European Spanish, for example. It's strange, but there are many features of the pronunciation of European Portuguese that make it sound more like a Slav language (from Eastern Europe, for example) - to the English-speaking 'ear' at least. And that's not just me - many other English-speaking people say the same thing.
Brazilian portuguese is much more musical in its sound, and much more 'Latino'. I'd agree that the intonation is the key difference, more than the pronunciation of individual phonemes. Though there are some differences there too - the one that struck me the most (again as an 'outsider', listening with an 'English ear' ) is the pronunciation of the letter 'd', particularly at the end of a word. For example, a word like 'verdade' : in European Portuguese the last consonant sounds somewhere between a very soft 'd' and a 'th' in English, whereas in Brazilian Portuguese it is almost like an English 'j' sound.
These are just my impressions. If any Brazilian or Portuguese people want to correct me, please do!