Where to go, and when · with the homework done
PORTUGAL · JUNE · THE MONTH, REGION BY REGION For a stretch of June (est.), Portugal moves dinner into the street. Grills appear on doorsteps in Lisbon’s Alfama and on Porto’s granite lanes, sardines go on the coals, and neighborhoods that spend the rest of the year politely quiet stay standing until well after the … Read more
PORTUGAL · MAY · THE FIRST BEST MONTH Sunset in Lisbon lands at 8:28pm on May 1 and 8:55pm by the 31st, and that one line explains most of the month. May is the first month our year-round verdict grades best: 69°F afternoons in the capital, six rain days, national lodging running at about 66% … Read more
PORTUGAL · APRIL · THE MONTH, REGION BY REGION Portugal spends its winter drinking rain, and April is when the receipt shows up: the hills north of Lisbon are green to the horizon, the Alentejo plains go yellow and purple with wildflowers, and the cities settle at 64°F, which is walking weather by any American … Read more
PORTUGAL · MARCH · THE MONTH, REGION BY REGION The chairs come back out. Somewhere in the first two weeks of March the café terraces in Lisbon and Faro stop being a gamble and go back to being the default, and the whole country tilts outdoors: 62°F afternoons, 51°F nights, about eight days of rain … Read more
PORTUGAL · FEBRUARY · THE EMPTIEST MONTH, REGION BY REGION February is the month Portugal keeps for itself. Lodging runs at roughly 35 percent of the August peak, so the trams have seats, the castle has no queue, and the Douro’s terraces stand bare and geometric above the water. It is also drier than January: … Read more
PORTUGAL · JANUARY · THE INDOOR MONTH, REGION BY REGION Portugal spends January indoors, and it does that well. Lisbon holds 56°F afternoons under a sky that delivers rain on about nine days, Porto counts twelve wet days and 154 mm, and the country’s hotels run at 31 percent of their August load. That adds … Read more
