Pousadas - Portugal
 

Hi everyone,

My wife and will be touring Portugal in early October. After a couple of days in Lisbon, we'll be travelling north.

There is a nice promotion for pousadas (a passport for 5 nights for 525 euros). Any comments on which pousadas we should stay at, which we should avoid, etc.

Thanks in advance,

Mike,

We need your itinerary to offer help.However, we enjoyed pousadas in Evora, Obidos, and Guimares.
Portugal is a wonderful country filled with history and the lovliest people we've ever met.

We love the ones Estromoz and Viana do Castello.
Try not to miss the Thursday market at Barcelos.

WE did a tour of the Pousadas of the Alentejo this past Spring and wrote a newsletter regarding our experience. If you do a search on Goggle, it pops up on the first page, On The Road - Arraiolos to Vila Vicosa.

Evora was wonderful and the food at the pousada was superb, but our room smelled of sewage, and no one seemed to be very interested in doing anything about it.

We have stayed in many pousadas over the years. There are two in Guimaraes, and the Santa Marinha up on the hill was the better, because tho the one in the center of town was great, there was a very early church bell every morning right outside our window.

The one up on the hill had heated floors in the rooms, which we loved on a Christmas visit to the North.

Also LOVED the one way up in Valenca da Minho, a little village in its own right.

The one in Obidos is small, but when we were there many years ago, the food was great! (Warning: the food is not always great, but the accommodations are.

The Pousada in Vila Vicosa was charming, very well decorated, a great find in an area somewhat devoid of any other place to stay.

We loved the Pousada at Queluz, where there is also the Palace of Queluz, the "pink" palace, to see and it's just outsdie Lisbon, so not a bad place to stay in between Lisbon and Sintra.

One of our all-time favorites was the pousada in Alcacer du Sol, where we stayed overnight upon arriving from NY, on our way south to the Algarve. Very lovely, more modern, great service. food not so great, but certainly OK.

One where we have not stayed, but did have a meal, and where I would stay in the Algarve, if I wanted to get away from it all, is the Pousada at Sagres. Do give that a look, but probably not a place a first timer to Portugal would end up.

Oh, yes, Evora's pousada was one on our very first trip. A real gem, at least then!

You will probably love them all. Some are better located than others, and even the more modern ones have many redeeming qualities.

a very lovely alternative to the Evora Pousada is just a few miles out of town in the countryside..the Pousada at Arraiolos(h). The town itself is small and pleasant with two good restaurants. The food at the pousada was quite good. Seems that Robert (above post)promotes it in his newsetter. We also stayed in the Marvao Pousada and the Belmonte Pousada in the Sieras. ...as BobTheNavigator often agrees, Convento do Estralagem in Obidos, while not a pousada is excellent and located next to the town wall. We used that passport program and it turned out very useful.

We have only stayed at the Pousada de Condeixa-a-Nova, Sta. Cristina (Coimbra). We really liked the hotel and the old-age atmosphere. We didn't have dinner at this pousada. We had dinner at the Pousada in Obidos and it was a waste of money.

We had excellent dining experiences in all of the pousadas, far auperior to those in Spanish Paradors.

Grab that passport offer ASAP.. You will not be disappointed with any of the mentioned pousadas. Evora and Obidos are small and probably you will need to make reservations now. You might contact Pousadas.pt as they had travel agents when we used them the first time. We didn't need them on 3 other trips. Queluz was getting a face lift 2 years ago and as any 400 year old lady knows. "The time has come!!!" We had a car/pousadas special the first time for about the same $ as you mention and used the Golden Age specials for the later trips. Breakfasts are outstanding!!!BTW Sao Phillipe(Setubal) wasn't mentioned and was great as were the others.

As an aside, I see from the pousadas website that they have changed their "golden age" rate. Several years ago, we got a 40% (?) discount off the rack rate, on weekdays, but it looks like they now offer only 15%.

I have heard about these 5 days passports but have never used one. If these are the terms of the one being discussed here, http://www.pousadasofportugal.com/passcalendar13.html you have to add supplements in many of the pousadas recommended by different posters on this thread, especially if you are going to be traveling from April-Oct. Some of those supplements are quite high and take the rate over some of the deals offered on the pousadas website. For instance, the Porto pousada has an 80 euro supplement every day of the week in Aug. and Sept., bringing it to 185, but the website is currently offering last minute 150 euro nights in Porto for Aug. and Sept. Very confusing.

In any event, if I were going to spend 5 nights in 5 different pousadas, I'd choose, in no particular order: Porto, Guimaraes (out of town convent), Arraiolos, Belmonte and either Estoi or Queluz. (I haven't stayed in Estoi or Porto yet, but they look amazing, and the reviews are consistently high).

Hi everyone,

Thanks for all your advice. We ended up staying at four different pousadas - below are our my comments.

The passport deal I mentioned in my first posting ended up being a great deal. We paid a total of 694 euros (525 for the passport plus seasonal upgrades and two of our own upgrades) or app. 140 euros / night (or $180 CDN). We also received three coupons for 20% of meals at the pousadas - in all, we saved about 45 euros. The rack rate for the pousadas ranged from 200 - 250 euros / night.

Condeixa: Very elegant, nice-sized rooms, great service. Five minute walk to town. They also had a huge lawn with a nice pool - a little chilly in October but I'm Canadian :) The breakfast buffet was very good as was our dinner.

Viana do Castello: Beautiful former monastery (?), great location on top of the hill above the cathedral. The breakfast buffet was very good and the dinner good.

Guimaraes: My favourite. Another former monastery attached to a functioning church. They had beautiful grounds, including a garden and artificial pond. The pool area was pretty (and the water a little warmer). The cloister was stunning. Our hallway was 15' wide X 300' long (!) and 20-25' high (I had to measure). The breakfast buffet was very good and the dinner okay.

Evora: My wife's favourite. Another former monastery, very elegant. The room was a little small, as was the door to the room (maybe 6' - but it added to the charm.) Also a short walk to town and right next to the Roman Temple of Evora(Diana Temple). Nice - and warmer - pool. The breakfast buffet was very good, the food was in a room with Manueline architecture and the tables surrounding the cloister.

Service in all four was excellent.

Mike,

Thanks for your Pousada report. We also loved Evora and Guimares plus a few others. We didn't want to leave Evora! We found them to be a higher quality than Spain's Paradors.

Can't go wrong with pousadas...Have probably stayed in 9 or 10 over the last few years and the only time I could make a slightly negative statement was the year the poor old Dona Maria at Queluz was closing for much needed facelift. Wish we had been a year later as this was the last of 3 stays there and left a bit to be desired..However a 400 yr old lady must be cut a little slack.

Mike, thank you so much for the update. So often these threads get forgotten and we are left wondering. Speaking of service, DH was very ill for our entire stay at Viana Do Castello. The staff could not have been more pleasant while I spent my time hanging around the grounds on nursing standby. The kitchen made special meals at very low charges and we were even offered a discount for a return visit. We were very impressed.

--Annie

In Viana do Castelo we stayed downtown, in the beautiful Relais de Chateaux property. It was much more accessible to town that the Posada, which is lovely, but very isolated, up a winding road.