early, early planning

Last month when we were in Lisbon we paid 30-35 euro for starters, 2 mains, a bottle of house red and 2 beers. When we were in the smaller towns the average was 25 euro. Oh and the meal will fill you up. A 330mm bottle of beer was mostly 0.80-0.90c. You can pay up to 1.20 in Lisbon. Any more than that and you are being ripped.The cheapest we paid was 0.70 at the Pochino train station. Bottled water is very cheap in the minmarkets - 0.20-1.5Lt I think. You can get it cheaper by the 6-pack.

I booked all our accommodation on the web before we came. I didn't want to waste time chasing up hotels. It would appear that I could have got hotel information, and even assistance in booking through the local tourist office. We were mostly paying 45 euro/night for a double with ensuite, but from what I saw we could have cut that to 30-35 euro. We were not watching our spending, and averaged 140euro/day for all costs - hotel, transport, food, sites, entertainment etc. We ate at a resturant almost every night, and would have a few drinks afterwards. We could have easily cut that by 20 euro without becoming monks, and if you factor in the cheaper hotel rate we could have had a great holiday on 110 euro a day for 2. Rember we didn't watch our spending.

Stav_ros, that's incredibly useful! I was starting with the idea of 60 euro/night (average) for rooms & 100 euro/day for expenses, with the idea of "if we can save that much, we won't have to worry." However, that was close to our budget in Italy, which we spent to the penny.

We like to picnic when possible, but eat out at night (not "high end" places, but good food) and we do both like beer and wine. Your traveling style sounds pretty close to what we do, so your budget helps a lot. :)

Re prices in Portugal.
You can have a decent double room in Lisbon from € 45, cheaper in small towns.
A cheap but good meal from € 10 pp, including house wine, in small towns even cheaper.
One restaurant I'd like to recommend in Coimbra, where I usually go before taking train to Porto or Lisbon, is O Talheiro (sp?), close to train station Coimbra B. They have set menus, with wine and dessert, from €10-12.

We went to Portugal nearly 3 years ago, so I imagine prices went up a bit since then, but we also found prices very reasonable. Since we went in October, the only place I had booked beforehand was a cheap hotel in Lisbon. Interestingly, I had a better price booking through Hotels.com or some such site than we got when we booked on the spot for our return to Lisbon. It's not that it was a great hotel, but well located and cheap (~35/night for a double with bath).

As far as other places went, for Evora I booked the day before over the net and got a good deal in a beautiful restored convent (now a Best Western hotel). I think we paid about 47€ instead of the 75 posted on the inside of the door. With breakfast included. Otherwise, in Lagos and Tavira (we went south since it was October), we just walked in off the street and got good places for about 25€/night. Not luxury tourism, of course, but clean and with bathrooms.

If you go in summer, I suppose you will pay more, and, as I said, prices have certainly gone up a bit, although Portugal does seem quite a bit cheaper than other W European countries. I believe for meals we usually paid about 20-25€ for the two of us, often with some white wine to go with the fish.

And if you order fish in Portugal, the rule is that you always get boiled potatoes. :)

Thanks, Fieldgate & bjd -- this really eases my mind about budgeting. Fieldgate, that's great -- we'll definitely be in Coimbra, so very good to know.

bjd, I'll probably book ahead in some places, too. I've found a wide variety of prices on the different sites, and had some good deals with a bit of patience. Will probably leave the smaller towns unbooked so that we can have some flexibility.

Good thing I like potatoes!

something i just remembered about (some)restaurants in portugal...they started bringing out appetizers and bread we hadn't ordered (we knew this trick already so sent it back) but don't feel obligated to eat it or just send it back, in fact, now being a little older I would walk out of a restaurant like this.

i'm sure you will have a great time, portugal is so beautiful and interesting.

Re Coimbra, go to see the Fado at aCapella, a converted church. The website is below
[http://www.acapella.com.pt/pt/?lang=_en]

We have never had a problem with the appetizers and bread. If you eat it you pay couple of euros. We always go the cheese because it is bloody good. We discovered that the olives they put aren't ancient, but have been crushed to release the pip. I have never tried the fish paste (and probably never will). We have always eaten the seafood for mains. You can get red meat, it is just that the seafood is really good. The cost of mains varied from 6-12 from small country places to Lisbon, and depending on what you ate. I can not comment on deserts beacuse I was always too full from the main. They make fantastic cakes, pastries, tarts etc so watch out, you can gain weight quickly.

When in Lisbon do not eat or drink in the Baixa area (the central flat bit). You will pay double to triple what you will pay anywhere else. Head up the hill a little (any of them) and you will be back in Portugal.

Edited by: Stav_ros

Thanks for the heads up vanve -- I no longer assume snacks or bread are free, after one particularly costly mistake in Prague. ;)

@ Stav_ros, it's probably a good thing that I'm not a fan of sweets... I think that has "saved" me more than once, while traveling (though I admit to eating more desserts than usual in Italy this summer).

I've annotated my guide with lots of this information... it's good to know the things that people really enjoyed, and my husband will definitely want to go to aCapella. (I will, too, but he's always on the lookout for music-type stuff.)

What's on the table in a Portuguese restaurant?
Usually it's bread, sardine paste, tuna paste or salmon paste, olives and butter.
It's optional. You pay for whatever you use.

In some restaurants where they have set menus like the one I mentioned @ #12 that pre-starter is included in the price. For a change it's cheese and slices of chorizo.

A lot of cheeses taste better than they smell. Try solomio al roquefer.
Roqufurt cheese. Horrible spelling, sorry.

Get a local nieghborhood map from every desl clerk you check in with.

And sentanse structure is better there two.
8-(:oQ