Portugal is part of Western Europe and uses the euro, so it’s never going to be dirt cheap, but compared to any country to the north of it, this destination is a real bargain for travelers. It makes a great value alternative to Spain, France, or Italy.

I just spent 11 gorgeous days in Portugal, first in Lisbon and then biking around the Alentejo region in the central south of the country. This is a rural farming region (think olive groves, vineyards, and cork trees) dotted with small cities often defined by glorious castles on a hill. It’s a fantastic area for cycling because there’s very little traffic and plenty of farm roads where you may go an hour or two without seeing a vehicle. The scenery is stupendous and the picture-perfect towns are inviting, nearly everything painted white with blue accents. Burial sites from a few thousand years ago lead to Roman ruins and castles built by a variety of invaders and reclaimers.

There’s not the huge gulf in prices though from Lisbon to the countryside as you find in some countries. Sure, it’s cheaper when you get out of the city, but for lodging anyway you have fewer choices so there’s not as much competition. It’s also harder to find cheap eats like street food in the countryside. Plan on doing a lot of self-catering if you’re on a budget because the locals don’t really seem to eat out that much. They may hang out at a cafe all day nursing an espresso or a tiny beer (25 CL), but restaurant choices get pretty slim outside of tourist towns like Evora.

Bring a phrase book or good language app! English is not widespread outside of the cities and resort areas on the coast. If you speak Spanish it helps when reading a menu and some people can speak Spanish. While many words are the same, however, the pronunciation of Portuguese is completely different. I was lost trying to comprehend much of anything.

Usually I do these prices in dollars, but this time I’m putting them in euros as that’s what all my notes are in. The exchange rate has long been in a range between $1.29 and $1.35 dollars to the euro. As in if something in here is €10, that’s around $13.50.

Food & Drink Prices in Portugal

I was thrilled when it was time to order a drink in Portugal. I found the proverbial $1 beer in one cafe, a 2-euro large carafe of house wine, and many places where your drink order with a set meal was “water, soda, or wine.” Nice, especially since what you get in Portugal is uniformly good.

One oddity here is that nothing placed on your table is complimentary. If you don’t want to be charged for bread, butter, soft cheese, or olives, you have to ask the waiter to take them back or push them over to the side so you won’t get charged. We rarely did that though as it was generally €0.50 to €1 for local olives or a big basket of freshly made bread.

Restaurant/cafe set meal prices: €5 – 10 with several courses and a drink
Typical main dishes, basic restaurant: €2.50 – 10
Typical main dishes, nice restaurant: €5 – 18
Pastry and an espresso: €1.50 – 3
Coffee: €0.50 – 1.50
House wine: €1 – 2.50 per glass
Better wine: €2 – 5 per glass, €5 – 15 per bottle in a restaurant
Wine in a store: €1 (really!) – 12 for most, “Reserve” brands €12 and up
Beer in a store/restaurant: o.50-0.75 each in store, .75 – €2 in restaurants (liter draft €3-4)
200 grams of cheese: 0.79 – €3
200 grams of dry sausage/pepperoni: €0.89 – 3.50
Baguettes: €0.30 – 0.60
Can of tuna or pate: €0.59 – 1.50
Seasonal fruit and vegetables: €1 – 2 per kilo for most, €3 berries
Oranges in season: €0.50 – 0.80 per kilo

Hotel and Hostel Prices in Portugal

Outside of the capital, in this country you’re often better off getting a hotel room than staying in a hostel if you’re traveling with someone else. Prices for hotels are a deal and the higher up you go, the better value they are compared to the rest of Western Europe. We stayed in two palaces—literally—that were included in our package but would be €108 and €145 respectively with breakfast if you booked direct. See the Pousadas of Portugal site to check out these interesting historic lodging options.

Hostel bed in small city: €14 – 25
Hostel bed Lisbon: €10 – 21
Pension (Pensão) in Lisbon: €20 – 50
3-star hotel: €22 – 60
4-star hotel: €59 – 99

Transportation Costs in Portugal

I saw all of three inter-city buses in a week’s time when I got into the countryside and two of those were parked, without a soul around. I only saw one person ever waiting at a bus stop. I get the impression that people without cars don’t move around very much except between major junctions.

Fuel is expensive and highways have heavy tolls, so transportation will be one of the biggest expenses. Don’t try to do it all!

Tram in Lisbon: €2.85 one ride, €6 all day unlimited
Subway in Lisbon: €1.40 one ride, €6 all day unlimited
1.5 hour bus ride (Lisbon-Evora): €12.50 one-way
2.5 hour bus ride (Lisbon-Western Algarve towns): €20 one-way
3-hour train (Porto-Lisbon): €35 – 42 1st class, €24 – 30 2nd class
Taxi in Lisbon, 2 people: €2.25 start, €1.60 per km
Taxi in Evora, 2 people: €3.25 start, €0.80 per km
Rental car booked from home: 210 to 350 dollars per week

Museum and Attraction Prices in Portugal

We didn’t actually spend very much on sightseeing. Many small museums are free, as are nearly all of the castles and churches dotted throughout the country. Popular Lisbon is a different story, however. We paid €7.50 to visit the castle there and €4 to go up into the dome and walk on the roof of the Basilica.

In general, you can figure on paying somewhere between one and eight euros for most attractions and museums. By European standards or even compared to Turkey, that’s quite reasonable.

Other Prices for Travelers

You can see the listing here for the Bike Tours direct tour I did (with Turaventur handling the local logistics). It’s 750 euros per person including nice hotels with breakfast and luggage transfers each day to the next hotel. That’s quite a deal no matter how you look at it, but especially if you compare it to similar tours they run in Burgundy, Bordeaux, or Tuscany.

Souvenirs to bring back home are affordable, the best being cork items, nice pottery (visit the town of São Pedro de Corval if you’re in Alentejo), jewelry, olive oil, and wine. At a local market in Estremoz we bought a wheel of cheese (enough for two) for €2 and a bottle of olive oil for €3 – both from local farmers.

I just finished up a week of biking around the Alentejo region of Portugal, on a tour with Bike Tours Direct of the USA and Turaventur of Portugal. (Watch for a story later in Perceptive Travel.)

Sometimes you can’t hit a country at the exact right time because of school or work schedules, but when you do, it’s a glorious thing. I’ll let the photos do the talking, but to say I saw a few million flowers would be a gross underestimate. This was an especially rainy winter in Portugal and that translated to plenty of wildflowers in the spring. As in a record number of them.

So not only was I biking along country roads at the perfect time weather wise (pleasant warm weather, not too hot, no rain), but I got a big floral bonus on top. Clean air perfumed by roses. And orange blossoms. And dozens of different fragrant flowers.

In the Alentejo region of Portugal, there’s not much traffic either, especially mid-week in the spring. So much of the time the only sounds were chirping birds. When a rare car was coming, I heard it well in advance.

Later I’ll do a post on prices in Portugal. It’s a good deal all around for mid-range travelers, especially compared to the rest of Western Europe. Backpackers have a lot of advantages here, but have to work at it a bit on finding cheap places to eat out.

We were on the Castles and Wine tour in Alentejo, so I can tell you the wine here is a real steal. One of the best values I’ve seen anywhere in the world. And a lot of the castles are free. More on that later…

It’s a new year and time for a new issue of Perceptive Travel, with offbeat stories from book authors moving through the Azores Islands of Portugal, the Sahara Desert of Algeria, and rural China.

If you’re just joining us, I launched Perceptive Travel webzine in 2006 and the blog soon after. It’s won a slew of “best travel writing” awards and gotten stories into travel writing anthologies. Each month the webzine publishes interesting narratives from wandering authors as well as reviews of new travel books and world music albums.

This month Judith Fein returns with a story about Public Art in the Azores—the islands way off the coast of Portugal. Guidebook author Jessica Lee goes exploring the desert of Southern Algeria with the Tuareg people and discovers why a simple piece of cloth is ideal Desert Wear in the Sahara. James Dorsey and his companion deliver some medical supplies in rural China and during the thank-you banquet he finds the rumors are true: they’ll eat just about any Creepy Crawlies in China.

Also, William Caverlee checks out some interesting new travel books and Graham Reid runs down some world music from four continents.

Last month one reader got a Christmas surprise when he won a Magellan GPS unit. This month we’re giving away a Granite Creek travel pants and shirt combo from Mountain Khakis. You can only win if you enter and you can only enter if you’re on the e-mail newsletter list or you follow Perceptive Travel on Facebook. Do it now!