Portugal Travel Guide

It is still remarkable value

Portugal remains the least expensive country in Western Europe for a good hotel, a good dinner and a glass of something worth drinking. A proper lunch with wine in a neighbourhood restaurant still costs less than a sandwich in most European capitals, and the quality is not the compromise you might expect.

A coast of genuine variety

Two hundred kilometres of Algarve cliff and cove in the south; the wild Atlantic surf coast of the centre; the Estoril and Cascais seafront within half an hour of the capital; and Madeira’s volcanic sea platforms out in the ocean. Very little of it looks like anywhere else.

Food that never pretends

Grilled fish that was swimming that morning, salt cod done four hundred ways, roast suckling pig, the custard tarts of Belém eaten warm with cinnamon, and a wine list — Douro, Alentejo, Vinho Verde, port and Madeira — that is one of the most underrated in the world.

The welcome is real

Portuguese courtesy is quiet rather than effusive, and it extends particularly to older visitors. English is spoken confidently in hotels, restaurants and shops throughout the tourist regions, and the habit of taking trouble over a guest is very much alive.

Lisbon & the coast

The capital on its seven hills, the palaces of Sintra in the mountains behind, and a flat, breezy seaside strip to the west.

• Lisbon Guild guide
• Guild guide
• Cascais
• Estoril
• Setubal

Porto & the north

The granite city on the Douro gorge, the wine valley behind it, and the old religious and student towns of the Minho.

• Porto Guild guide
• Braga
• Guimaraes
• Aveiro
• Peso da Regua

The Algarve

Two hundred kilometres of ochre cliff and Atlantic beach, with the warmest sea in the country in September.

• Albufeira Guild guide
• Lagos
• Tavira
• Faro
• Vilamoura

Madeira & the Azores

Atlantic islands with their own weather — Madeira is mild every month of the year, which makes it Portugal’s winter answer.

• Guild guide
• Ponta Delgada
• Porto Santo

The centre & the Alentejo

Walled towns, the old university, the surfing coast and a wide, hot, empty plain of cork oaks and wine.

• Coimbra
• Evora
• Obidos
• Nazare

Lisbon and the coast behind it

Almost every trip starts in Lisbon, and it should. The Baixa grid, the Jerónimos Monastery and tower at Belém, the castle, the miradouros and the tiled churches fill three unhurried days. Half an hour into the hills sits Sintra, with Pena Palace on its crag and gardens dripping with mist; half an hour along the coast lies Cascais, flat, seaside and civilised, which many older travellers end up preferring as a base. Setúbal and the Arrábida coast are south across the bridge and almost untouristed.

Porto, the Douro and the north

Porto is the handsome, granite, working alternative to Lisbon: a UNESCO riverfront, the port lodges across the water at Gaia, and one of Europe’s best railway stations for its tiles alone. Behind it the Douro valley climbs in schist terraces — the oldest demarcated wine region in the world and best seen by train or boat. North again, Braga and Guimarães hold the country’s religious and royal beginnings, and Aveiro is a flat little canal town that suits anyone tired of hills.

The Algarve

The south coast is where Portugal does resorts, and it does them at every level from the very grand to the frankly rowdy. Albufeira is the centre of it, and is really several places at once: a pretty cliff-top old town, a loud strip of bars a mile east that you should simply avoid, and quiet pine-shaded hotel country to the west. Lagos and Tavira are prettier and calmer, Vilamoura is the marina-and-golf end, and the water everywhere is Atlantic — bracing, not Mediterranean.

Madeira and the Azores

Madeira is a volcanic mountain in the ocean with a mild subtropical climate that barely varies from January to December, which makes it the one part of Portugal genuinely worth a winter trip. Funchal, its capital, is built up an amphitheatre of hillside — spectacular and steep, with one blessedly flat seafront promenade that decides where sensible people stay. The Azores, further out still, are green, wet, volcanic and wonderful, and are a trip of their own rather than an add-on.

Belém, slowly, in the morning

The Jerónimos Monastery and the Torre de Belém are the high-water mark of Portuguese architecture, and the whole quarter is flat — a considerable mercy in this city. Go early, then eat two pastéis de nata warm from the oven with cinnamon, standing up, like everyone else.

The Douro valley by train or boat

The line from Porto up the Douro is one of the great railway journeys of Europe, running for miles along the water’s edge below terraced vineyards. Go in September, when the harvest is in and the light is long. The river cruises cover the same ground more slowly and with lunch.

A port lodge at Vila Nova de Gaia

Taylor’s, Graham’s, Sandeman, Cálem and Ferreira all sit on the south bank facing Porto, and all run tours of an hour or so ending in a tasting. The cellars are cool and level inside — but several sit high up the hill, so take a taxi to the door and walk down afterwards.

Sintra before the coaches arrive

Pena Palace is a Romantic fantasy in red and yellow on a wooded crag, and it is booked by timed ticket that sells out days ahead in summer. Take the earliest slot you can get. Between five in the evening and ten in the morning Sintra empties and becomes a quiet, misty hill town again.

A long lunch on the Algarve

Not a joke. Find a beach restaurant with a grill going, order the fish of the day by weight, add a bottle of white and a plate of clams, and give it three hours. In September the sea is at its warmest of the whole year and the crowds have gone home.

Fado, in a small room

Portugal’s national music is best heard in a fifty-seat house in Alfama or Mouraria where the lights go down and everyone stops eating. Book ahead, go late, and choose a place with a cover charge rather than a tout on the door — the cover charge is the sign that the singing is the point.

When to go

Late April to mid-June and mid-September through October are the sweet spots — warm, bright, everything open and the crowds well below peak. July and August are hot, packed and dear, and in the Algarve genuinely saturated. November to March is mild but wet on the mainland, cheap and quiet, and excellent for the cities. Madeira is comfortable all twelve months. Our goes through it properly.

Getting there

Lisbon (LIS) is the main long-haul gateway, with direct flights from a dozen North American cities. Porto (OPO) takes a growing number of direct transatlantic services and is far easier to get through. Faro (FAO) serves the Algarve and is about forty-five minutes’ drive from Albufeira. Madeira (FNC) is reached by connection through Lisbon or Porto, about ninety minutes in the air.

The trains are genuinely good

This is the one country in southern Europe where we would tell you to leave the car behind. The Alfa Pendular links Lisbon and Porto in under three hours, centre to centre, and Lisbon to Faro in about three. Book at cp.pt; reservations open sixty days ahead and the cheap fares go first. The regional line along the Algarve coast is slow and rattly — for the last leg to Albufeira or Lagos, take a transfer or a bus instead.

Money and paperwork

The currency is the euro, and cards work almost everywhere. Several cities add a small tourist tax per person per night, paid at the hotel desk — four euros in Lisbon, three in Porto, two in Funchal and in Albufeira in summer. On paperwork, the EU’s new Entry/Exit System has been fully live since April 2026, so expect fingerprints and a photograph on first arrival and no passport stamp; the separate ETIAS authorisation has been delayed again and is not required. Check the official guidance before you book.

Which cities are genuinely walkable

Lisbon’s Baixa is flat — a level grid rebuilt after the 1755 earthquake — and so is Belém. Cascais, Aveiro, Tavira, Faro and Évora are easy on the feet. The genuinely hard going is Lisbon’s Alfama, Porto’s climb up from the Ribeira quay, Coimbra’s university hill and almost all of Funchal away from the seafront. And everywhere there is the calçada — small limestone paving blocks, beautiful and polished glassy by two centuries of feet. Shoes with real grip matter more in Portugal than almost anywhere in Europe.

Where the train beats the plane

Almost everywhere here, which is unusual. The Alfa Pendular runs Lisbon to Porto in under three hours from one city centre to the other, with no baggage limit and no security queue — against nearly four hours door to door by air. Lisbon to Faro is about three hours the same way. Take the train, sit by the window on the left going north, and have lunch on board. The one place to fly is Madeira, which is an hour and a half out into the Atlantic.

Where summer crowds make spring or autumn the wiser trip

The Algarve above all. Albufeira in August is a different town from Albufeira in June — every bed taken, restaurants requiring reservations, and beach parking a lost cause. September is the connoisseur’s month there, because the Atlantic lags the air by two months and the sea is at its warmest of the year just as the crowds go home; rates fall by something like forty percent from the August peak. Lisbon in August is the other one to avoid: heat trapped in the hill streets, the longest tram queues of the year, and a good share of the best neighbourhood restaurants closed while their owners take their own holiday.

Ask one question before booking any hotel here

“How many steps are there from the street or the taxi drop-off to my room, and is there a lift the whole way?” Portugal’s loveliest small hotels are in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century buildings where a lift was squeezed into a stairwell afterwards, arriving at a half-landing with steps on either side. A good hotel answers this precisely and without fuss. A vague answer is itself an answer. This one question prevents more spoiled holidays in Lisbon, Porto and Funchal than any other advice we know.