3 friends and I (2 couples) are travelling to Cascais, Albufeira, Evora and Lisbon (all in 9 days)!! Can anyone recommend reasonable hotels to stay at in each location, in the 30 to 40 euro price range per person? We're looking for hotels that are preferably on the beach. Thanks.

In Evora will be hard to find an hotel by the beach ;-)<BR><BR>try this place I love:<BR>www.monteserralheira.com<BR>It is not an hotel but a farm prepared to welcome tourists just outside Evora with amazing views over the old town and very friendly managers Lucia and George.<BR><BR>www.bikeiberia.com<BR>Experience the best of Portugal and Spain by bike &lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&l t;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;&lt;

Don't stay in Lisbon, instead take the train from Cascais into Lisbon and Belem, and maybe rent a car for the others.<BR><BR>We stayed in Hotel Baia, at 75 euros a night, on the beach in Cascais. I don't think you get the beach view for less, but I am pretty sure that there are several pensaos near the beach that are in your price range.<BR><BR>BTW, it depends when you go, but we were there this month and we found that it is easy to find a nice Pensao or Residencial in the 40-50 Euro range (double) with private bath, outside of the major cities. Hotels cost more.

We stayed at the Baia too, and thought it was far from the best value - our room was rather shabby, and the view of the water also meant we got a lot of noise from the square down below. Overall we were frankly unimpressed with Cascais.

John, were you there recently? Fodors said the hotel rooms facing the ocean were not as nice as the back rooms, but there was nothing wrong with our room. It was clean well lit and recently redecorated. We loved the little balcony. We were there in early May.<BR><BR>We loved Cascais. It was peaceful and clean compared to filthy Lisboa, always sunny even when Sintra was in the clouds. We were easily able to see all the sites in the area from Cascais as a home base. We took the train to Lisboa and Belem, and had a car to explore the Estoril coast and Sintra. The only time the square was noisy was one morning when a crazy lady decided to sing loudly at 7 am. It is much quieter than any hotel in Lisboa would be.

Dear Carol, <BR> Thanks for the info on Cascais. My fiance and I are going to Portugal for our honeymoon next June. How difficult would it be to get the train into Lisbon from Cascais? Also, we are interested in bringing our bikes so are there many good bike trails here? <BR> Finally, we are staying on the mainland for only a few days and then going to San Miguel (the Azores). Can you recommend a good place to stay here?<BR>Thanks,<BR> Milissa and Cavan

The train takes about 40 minutes and is dead easy to take and ends up right in the heart of Lisboa. But if you go to Belem, you will have to transfer at a place about 1/2 way, I can't recall the spelling, but we jokingly called it Oreos. We did not realize this and walked for an hour from the next stop after Belem.<BR><BR>There are good bike paths along the Estoril coast. I am not an expert on this but there is a guy who has put in some posts that is... do a search under Portugal and use keyword "biking".<BR><BR>We did not get to the Azores so I can't help you there.<BR><BR>BTW, we skipped Evora because several people told us that all there is to see is the temple of Diana, and we are not into ruins.

for lisbon check in www.lisbonow.com<BR><BR>Regards

I don't think you should skip Evora! We spent a week in the Algarve, then drove back to Lisbon to fly home via Evora. The area surrounding Evora is so lovely, with olive trees, cork oak, etc. and we really enjoyed just driving around. As far as actual touristic sites, maybe Evora comes up a little short but the feel of the city is wonderful and a welcome contrast to the busy, touristy Algarve.<BR><BR>By the way, we didn't think much of Albufeira at all. There are much nicer towns along the Algarve, I think. It was the only place in the Algarve where we (boyfriend and I) felt at all unsafe (not really, but people kept trying to sell us knockoff watches and it was a little annoying).<BR><BR>Things are nice and close together in Portugal so you should be able to do it all in 9 days. Happy traveling!

Missed this last month. Re Baia Hotel in Cascais, we stayed there a couple of years ago, so maybe it's been fixed up since then. It needed it.