Portugal, Part I: The Southern Escape
vermelho in melides
Portugal is one of those countries that quietly captures you, layered with design, warmth, and a pace that invites you to exhale.
If you have one to two weeks, I usually split the country into two itineraries:
North: Lisbon, Porto, Douro Valley
South: Lisbon, Comporta & the Algarve
This guide focuses on the south, a combination of golden coasts, boutique design hotels, and easy living. (I’ll share the Northern edition soon, but if you’re heading that way, I already have favorite hotels and local partners I’d be happy to recommend.)
Algarve: Stay at Vila Vita Parc, the best resort in the region, full stop. It has direct beach access, endless restaurants, a gorgeous spa, and perhaps the best breakfast buffet you’ll ever experience. You could spend days here hiking the cliffs, visiting Porches Pottery, or lunching seaside at Rei das Praias.
Comporta: Chic, quiet, and impossibly photogenic. Stay at Vermelho, Sublime Comporta, or AlmaLusa, each with its own personality. Lunch at Cavalariça in the village or at Sublime Beach Club, and don’t miss the secret beach near Vermelho.
Lisbon: I always end or begin in Lisbon. Stay at AlmaLusa Baixa/Chiado, Bairro Alto Hotel, or Palácio Ludovice, all well-located and beautifully designed. Pair sightseeing with slow afternoons at Comida Independente, Pontofinal, or Seagull Method Café, and skip the long lines at Pastéis de Belém, Manteigaria is better.
For a day trip: Sintra + Cascais, palaces, cliffs, and oceanfront lunches.
Lisbon, and how to actually use the city
Lisbon rewards staying central and walking, and it punishes staying somewhere with a view that turns out to be a twenty minute uphill walk from dinner. Chiado and Baixa put you in the middle of everything on flat ground, which matters more here than in most cities because Lisbon is built on hills and the hills are not gentle. Príncipe Real is the quieter, leafier alternative, a short walk up, full of good restaurants and the antique shops worth an afternoon. Alfama is the oldest and most beautiful part of the city and also the most awkward to stay in, because the streets are stairs and no car can reach your door.
Two or three days is right for Lisbon on a first visit, and I would use them by neighborhood rather than by monument. One day in Chiado and Baixa. One day in Belém and along the water, understanding that the queue at Pastéis de Belém is the queue and Manteigaria is better anyway. One day for Alfama and the viewpoints, ideally ending with dinner somewhere with no view at all, because the food is better away from the terraces.
Comporta, and what it is actually like
Comporta is about an hour and a quarter south of Lisbon and it is the part of this itinerary people fall hardest for, so it is worth being clear about what it is. It is rice paddies, pine forest, and a very long flat beach with almost nothing built on it. It is not a resort town. There is no nightlife to speak of. The pleasure is the emptiness, the light, and lunches that run to three hours.
That makes it perfect for three or four nights and slightly maddening for a week if you need things to do. Go for the beach and the quiet, rent a car, and accept that dinner requires a drive.
The Algarve, and which end of it
The Algarve is long enough that the two ends are different holidays. The central and western stretch, around Porches and Lagoa and out toward Lagos and Sagres, is the dramatic one, with the ochre cliffs and the sea caves and the coastline you have seen photographed. The eastern end toward Tavira and the Spanish border is flatter, sandier, quieter and considerably less developed, with some of the best beaches reached by a short boat ride across the lagoon.
If you want one base and a spa and a beach you can walk onto, the center is right. If you want to disappear, go east.
When to go
May, June, September and early October are the best months, and September is the single best of them. The water is at its warmest after a summer of heating up, the light is long, and the crowds have gone.
July and August are hot and full, and the second half of August is when Portugal itself is on holiday, which means the coast is at its busiest and the cities are at their emptiest. That can be a reason to go rather than a reason to stay away, if Lisbon in the quiet appeals more than the Algarve in the crush.
Winter is genuinely mild and genuinely cheap, and the Algarve in February is a real option for walking and golf if you are not counting on swimming.
Driving, and what it costs you not to
You want a car for Comporta and the Algarve, and you do not want one in Lisbon. The cleanest version is to do Lisbon first with no car, pick one up when you leave the city, and drop it before you fly home. The motorway tolls are electronic, so sort the transponder with the rental company rather than working it out at a machine later.
How we book Portugal
The reason we send so many people here is that Portugal delivers a genuinely high standard of hotel for what the equivalent costs in Italy or France, and the design hotels in particular are doing some of the most interesting work in Europe right now. What is worth paying an advisor for is the sequencing and the room choice, because in Comporta especially the difference between two rooms at the same property is the difference between the trip you imagined and a wall.
Get in touch if you want us to build it, and the full southern itinerary with the restaurant detail and the scenic routes is in my Portugal guide on Substack.
Read my full Southern Portugal guide: Tune in on Substack
The full guide has everything you need including restaurant details, scenic routes, and hotel recs for every type of traveler.
Portugal: Sun, Culture & Slow Living
Portugal has a quiet magnetism, where golden coastlines meet timeless cities and long lunches stretch into evening. From Lisbon’s tiled streets to Comporta’s minimalist charm and the Algarve’s cliffside beaches, it’s a country that feels both grounded and glamorous.
Whether it’s your first visit or your fifth, Portugal always reveals something new, another view, another flavor, another reason to linger.
Ready to plan your Portugal escape?
Let me design a journey that’s beautifully paced, design-forward, and deeply restorative.
Reach out to start planning
With love, Michelle
