Benagil, the Douro, a levada in the cloud forest. Then work out the order.
Which Benagil boat actually goes inside the cave. What a Douro day with lunch and a river hour really costs. Whether Sintra and Cascais fit into one afternoon. Reviews of every tour you can book in Portugal.
Four bookings a first week in Portugal gets built around.
The cave morning, the Douro day, the Sintra loop and a night of fado. What each one costs, and what travellers say once they are back.
01Morning, AlgarveBenagil Sea Caves Speedboat Adventure TourSpeedboats leave Portimão early, before the swell comes up and the dome fills with other hulls.
02A day up the DouroDouro Valley w/ Boat Tour, Wine Tasting & LunchTwo quintas, lunch on a terrace above the water and an hour on the river, all out of Porto by minibus.
03The Sintra loopSintra, Pena, Regaleira, Cabo da Roca & CascaisPena, Regaleira, Cabo da Roca and Cascais in one run. The palaces sell timed slots, so the order is decided for you.
04The Porto eveningLive Fado Show with Glass of Port WineA glass of port in a Gaia lodge, then fado in a room small enough to hear fingernails on the strings.
Cave boat, dolphin catamaran, or canvas up out of the Tagus.
More of Portugal is reached by hull than the map lets on. Four kinds of day afloat, what it costs to board each one, and the coast it belongs to.
★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · Dolphins Search and Benagil Caves from Albufeira
Into the Benagil cavesInside the Benagil dome and the arches either side of it.
Dolphin daysCommon and bottlenose pods off the Algarve, Arrábida and Madeira.
Sail daysCanvas up, swim stops, lunch handed round on deck.
Every Portuguese boat dayRiver cruises, island crossings and the six-bridge loop in Porto.
All 391 days with a boat under you →
Lisbon first, then whichever coast or river you have days for.
A capital built on seven hills, a limestone coast full of caves, a wine river cut into schist, a volcanic island with trails along its water channels, a palace town in the mist, and whale sea a two-hour flight out. Six places to start, and the best day out in each.
Portugal’s most booked days out.
Every tour we have reviewed in Portugal →More travellers take these than anything else in the country. What each costs, and what earns it the slot.
1
The Unvanquished Tour in Porto City Center
Walk from Porto City Hall to the Cathedral with an English-speaking guide such as Tiago, Diogo, Jaime, Sara, or Adriano. You’ll see São Bento, Lello Bookshop, Clérigos Tower, Rua das Flores, and the Vitória viewpoint, while hearing local stories and getting useful restaurant advice. It is a pay-what-you-want tour, with paid entrances excluded.
From · $3
Read our review →
2
Lisbon City Center Tour – The Unmissable Lisbon
from $3
3
Sintra, Pena, Regaleira, Cabo da Roca & Cascais
from $23
4
Douro Valley w/ Boat Tour, Wine Tasting & Lunch
from $82
5
Pena Palace and Park Entrance Ticket
from $11
6
Jerónimos Monastery Entrance Ticket
from $21
7
Six Bridges Cruise
from $21
8
History, Stories and Lifestyle Walking Tour
from $29
9
2.5-Hour Benagil Caves & Dolphin Watching
from $40
10
Sunset Boat Party Cruise with DJ and Open Bar
from $27
11
Oceanário de Lisboa Entrance Ticket
from $29
12
Benagil Caves Speed Boat Tour with Sunset Option
from $23
13
True 4Hour Private Tuk Tuk Tour: Discover Lisbon with a Local!
from $108
Lisbon: climb early, eat late, take the tram in between.
All of Lisbon →
Alfama before the heat, Belém for the monastery and the tarts, a rooftop for the river at dusk. These three carry more travellers than anything else in the city.
Alfama and the Mouraria on foot
Up through the oldest lanes while they are still cool and half empty, past the miradouros, then down into the Mouraria where fado started. Do it on day one and the rest of the city arranges itself.
Jerónimos, and the queue you can skip
The cloister is the reason to go: two storeys of rope, coral and knotted stone carved out of soft limestone. Entry runs on slots and the line outside is long by eleven, so the ticket is the whole decision.
Tinned fish, vinho verde, one tart too many
A conserveira counter, a cheese shop, a cellar poured by the glass, and a pastéis stop that ruins supermarket custard tarts for good.
Three things that happen in Portugal and nowhere else.
Cliffs and cathedrals turn up all over Europe. Irrigation channels you can walk for a whole day, a room where nobody speaks while one voice sings, and half a mile of cellars aged by the river do not.
Walking the Levadas
Settlers cut narrow channels into the wet north face of Madeira to carry rain across to the dry south, and the maintenance paths beside them became the island’s trail network. You walk at the gradient of flowing water, which is to say almost none, through laurel forest that has been standing since before the ice ages. Several stretches run through unlit tunnels, so a torch earns its place in the daypack.
- 1Enjoy a Guided Levada Walk in the Rabaçal Valley★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 2,197 reviews
- 2Madeira Walks – Rabaçal and the 25 Fountains★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 1,204 reviews
- 3Rabaçal: 25 Fontes & Risco Levada Transfer Self-guided Hike★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 841 reviews
Fado
There are two traditions, not one. The Lisbon style is sung in small rooms in Alfama and Mouraria, often by women, about the sea and what it takes away, and the Porto houses sing it too. Coimbra fado belongs to the university, sung by men in black capes, and the audience coughs instead of clapping. Rooms are tiny and the lights go properly down, so latecomers wait at the door until a song ends.
- 1Live Fado Show with Glass of Port Wine★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 6,498 reviews
- 2Live Fado Show with Port Wine in Historic Center★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 4,166 reviews
- 3Cálem Cellar Tour, Fado Show & Wine Tasting★★★★★★★★★★ 4.4 · 3,530 reviews
The Lodges in Gaia
Port is grown and pressed up the Douro, then aged across the water from Porto in long cool lodges that barely change temperature all year. A tasting walks you through the one split that decides everything: bottle-aged vintage and LBV on one side, cask-aged tawny on the other. Most lodges sit within ten minutes of each other, which makes two in an afternoon easy and three a mistake.
- 1Cálem Cellar Tour, Interactive Museum & Wine Tasting★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 4,113 reviews
- 2Taylor’s Port Cellars & Tasting★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 3,374 reviews
- 3Cockburn’s Port Lodge Tour and Tasting★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 3,360 reviews
A day out in Portugal, from the cheap end up.
Three price brackets, and what each one buys you here. A good number of the best Portuguese days cost less than dinner for two.
Old-town walks, tram and monastery tickets, cellar tastings and the short cave boats out of Portimão.
Full days: the Douro with lunch, Sintra and Cascais by minibus, Madeira by 4WD across to Porto Moniz.
Private guiding, a chartered hull, and the one day of the trip you overspend on deliberately.
Madeira and the Azores are a flight, not a ferry.
Madeira hands you irrigation channels to walk, a 1,800 metre ridge at sunrise and swimming pools set into old lava. São Miguel hands you crater lakes, hot springs and whales close enough to hear. Neither works as a day trip from the mainland, so give each one its own stretch of the calendar.
Tinned fish counters, custard tarts at seven, tawny poured across the river.
Half the country happens at a table. Book the market walk before lunch, the nata class that ends with a tray of your own, and the tasting that finally explains what tawny is.
Porto is the doorway. The wine is ninety minutes upriver.
Six bridges, a tiled station and the lodges across the water in Gaia fill two days without effort. Then the valley opens: terraces cut into schist, quintas above the bends, and a boat that carries you back down through all of it.
Every Porto and Douro day →
Four things you cannot sort out the night before.
Most of this country can be arranged over breakfast. These four run on timed slots, tides and weather windows that take no interest in when your flight lands.
- 012.5-Hour Benagil Caves & Dolphin WatchingThe cave is a morning sight and the boats are small. By afternoon the light is off the dome, the swell is up and the good departures have gone.
- 02Pena Palace and Park Entrance TicketPena sells entry in half-hour slots with a cap on the interior. Arrive in summer without one and you are looking at the terraces only.
- 03Pico do Arieiro Sunrise Transfer Self-guided HikeThe sunrise run leaves Funchal in the dark on a fixed schedule, and the ridge shuts whenever cloud sits on it.
- 04Aveiro, Paiva Walkways and Arouca 516 FootbridgeThe 516 bridge runs on timed entry with a daily cap, and the Paiva walkways close in high wind.
The Algarve is a hundred and fifty kilometres of holed limestone.
The cliffs between Portimão and Albufeira are drilled through with arches, blowholes and collapsed domes, and almost none of it can be reached on foot. Boats run from half a dozen marinas, the dolphins are usually thrown in, and the difference between a good trip and a wet one is the departure time.
- 12.5-Hour Benagil Caves & Dolphin Watchingfrom $40
- 2Benagil Caves Speed Boat Tour with Sunset Optionfrom $23
- 3Benagil Sea Caves Speedboat Adventure Tourfrom $20
The nortada blows the boats out, and the north rains more than you expect.
Summer afternoons on this coast belong to the north wind. Cave boats get cancelled at short notice, the swell comes up and the water is colder than the latitude promises. Above Coimbra the winter rain does the same job. Both have one answer: go under a roof, somewhere the weather has never mattered.
Lisbon, Sintra, the Algarve, Porto, the Douro: the loop almost everybody does first.
Lisbon
Sintra
Arrábida
Porto
Douro ValleyStart from a place
The newest days out written up here.
More new Portugal reviews →
Achadas Teixeira- Pico Ruivo -& Pico pedras/Queimadas forest walk
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Jeep Tour To Santana: Old Forest Full-Day East-Side
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Pico Arieiro To Pico Ruivo / Highest Peak Challenge
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Northwest Terraces and Volcanic Pools 4×4 Full Day Tour
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Nun’s Valley & Sea Cliff – Half Day – Shared Tour
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Monte Palace Tropical Garden tour with Cable Car
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4×4 Safari Half day Poncha, Mountains, Vineyards and Cabo Girão Small group
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Arieiro Peak, Santo Serra, Cristo Rei in Open Roof 4×4 Experience
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