Alentejo in November: Weather, Rain Days, Crowds and a Two-Day Plan

PORTUGAL · ALENTEJO · NOVEMBER

Cork oaks, wheat plains and whitewashed hill towns look much the same in any season. The thermometer does not. At the Évora weather station, a November afternoon averages 63.7°F and a November night 46.2°F, which is walking weather by day and fleece weather by dark.

The month also hands you a short day, 10 hours and 7 minutes of it on the 15th, and 3.39 inches of rain spread across roughly nine dates. Both are easier to plan around than to hope through, and together they decide how many towns fit into a day.

On this page

• Average highs, lows and rain daysNovember normals at the Évora station
• What to wear in the Alentejo in November63.7°F days, 46.2°F nights
• Crowds, prices and the tourist taxWhat we can and cannot put a number on
• Things to do in the Alentejo in NovemberÉvora, Monsaraz, Mértola and the Alqueva night sky
• A two-day plan around 10 hours of daylightDay one and day two, hour by hour
• November, October or December?How the three months compare
• Is November a good time to visit?Who should go and who should shift

Every figure here comes from one instrument: IPMA station 558 at Évora, 247.6 m above sea level, standing inside the Alentejo rather than on a coast borrowed as a proxy. The region is big enough for that to matter. The hill country up toward Marvão runs colder and a good deal wetter, and the Atlantic edge keeps weather of its own, so pack for a mountain trail on mountain numbers rather than on these.

Alentejo weather in November: average highs, lows and rain days

IPMA, Portugal’s national weather service, publishes the 1991-2020 normals for that station: average high 63.7°F, average low 46.2°F, 3.39 inches of precipitation over the month. These are readings from a thermometer at a known altitude, not a reanalysis averaged over a grid cell, and the difference between the two methods is usually largest on the overnight minimum. That is why we quote Évora to the tenth and refuse to stretch it over the whole region.

Rain reaches the gauge on 8.8 days in an average November, roughly one day in three and a half. Only 3.1 of those bring 0.39 inch or more, and at that rate the heavy days alone account for over a third of the monthly total. One caution before you compare charts: IPMA counts from 1 mm (0.04 inch), while American tables usually start at 0.10 inch, so 8.8 is not the same quantity as the rain-day count you read at home.

Between the 63.7°F afternoon and the 46.2°F night sits 17.5°F, and you feel all of it walking back to the car after dinner. A fleece, a rain shell and shoes that cope with wet cobbles cover the month. Ask what heating a room actually has before you book, too: the thick-walled Alentejo building stock was designed to defeat July, and it does that job just as well in November. Our packing guide has the rest of the list.

On November 15 the sun rises at 7:12 am and sets at 5:19 pm local time, 10 hours and 7 minutes apart. Useful sightseeing light is gone before 5 pm, and photographers get their best hour of it mid-afternoon. Two towns in one day works comfortably at this time of year. Three means arriving somewhere in the dark and calling it a visit.

How warm is Alentejo in November? 63.7°F days, 46.2°F nights

The month’s average maximum is 63.7°F and its average minimum 46.2°F, a 17.5°F swing across every 24 hours. Set against October’s 75.4°F afternoons, November has given up 11.7°F of daytime warmth, and against December’s 58.3°F it still holds 5.4°F in hand. That middle position is the whole character of the month: too cool for a beach holiday, warm enough for a full day outdoors without rationing it.

In practice you dress twice. Mornings at or near 46.2°F want a fleece and a warm layer under the shell, especially in the shade of a walled street where the sun does not reach until late. By early afternoon in the sun, the fleece goes in the daypack and shirtsleeves do fine. The layer you will actually regret leaving behind is the one you put back on at 4 pm, when the light drops fast.

We could not verify a count of nights at or below freezing for Évora in November. IPMA’s monthly normal gives us the mean minimum and not the tally of frost nights, so we give no frost figure. Read 46.2°F as the middle of a range rather than a floor: interior plains under a clear, still sky routinely fall well below their monthly mean, and the Alentejo is interior plain.

How busy is Alentejo in November? Crowds, prices and the tourist tax

November falls in the region’s quiet stretch by the calendar alone: the October wine-country traffic has cleared and the Christmas and New Year weeks have not begun. We found no occupancy series and no monthly room-rate series for the Alentejo, so we crown no month cheapest and publish no percentage. What the calendar supports is narrower and still useful: this is a month when the good rooms in small towns are not fought over. Our cost guide handles the budget side.

That changes the direction of the risk on a booking. With 8.8 rain days in play, the thing worth protecting is flexibility rather than price, because a refundable rate lets you slide the coast day to the drier half of the week. We could not verify winter closing dates for individual guesthouses and restaurants in the smaller towns, so phone the place a few days ahead instead of trusting a summer listing. Where to stay in Portugal sorts the regions.

Portugal’s municipal tourist tax is set town by town, and we could not verify a current rate for the Alentejo municipalities, so no amount comes from us. Ask at check-in what is added per person per night and whether children are exempt. The general rules for arrival paperwork and money sit in know before you go.

One line on the budget genuinely changes this month, and it is the car. With 10 hours and 7 minutes of daylight, distance is paid in light, not in euros: a rental collected at the start turns two hill towns and a viewpoint into an easy day, while bus timetables turn the same plan into one town. Our rental guide covers tolls and insurance, and getting around Portugal covers the alternatives.

Things to do in Alentejo in November

Midday becomes the usable part of the day, and no other season here offers that. At 63.7°F, 11.7°F below October, a one o’clock walk across open ground is pleasant rather than something to be endured. The second gift is early darkness: night falls not long after the 5:19 pm sunset, so the Alqueva dark-sky country becomes a before-dinner outing instead of a midnight expedition.

Évora makes the obvious base, a walled center with its Roman temple and the bone chapel at São Francisco, and it is where our thermometer stands at 247.6 m. Monsaraz looks down on the Alqueva reservoir from inside its castle walls. Marvão and Castelo de Vide hold the northern hills, colder and wetter than the Évora numbers. Mértola guards the Guadiana in the south, and Vila Nova de Milfontes anchors the coast. We could not verify current admission prices or winter opening hours for these monuments, so check each one before you drive. Our Évora guide goes deeper on the town.

What November alters is the air, not the stone. A cathedral nave and a wine cellar sit at much the same temperature all year, while the outdoor air has dropped 11.7°F since October, so the visit reverses: cold inside, comfortable outside, the exact opposite of August. On the coast, the cliff paths around Milfontes turn into midday walking rather than dawn walking.

The free half of the month is the half it does best. Walking the walled streets, standing on a rampart above the plain, following the reservoir shore, looking up after 6 pm: none of it has a ticket desk. We could not verify free-admission days or reduced winter rates at Évora’s monuments, so budget for full price and treat any discount as a bonus.

Alentejo in November: a two-day itinerary

Day one stays in Évora. Sunrise is at 7:12 am, so coffee at eight loses nothing. Walk the walled center from nine while the streets are still at their coldest and the monuments have just opened, then break for a long lunch when the air reaches its 63.7°F best. Drive out at two for Monsaraz, take the castle walls and the reservoir view between four and five, and be back in town by dark at 5:19 pm rather than chasing one more stop.

Day two goes south or north depending on the sky. Clear, and Mértola over the Guadiana or the cliff path at Milfontes fills the light beautifully, with the drive done in the morning while the day warms. Wet, and it is one of the 3.1 days a month that bring 0.39 inch or more, in which case swap the walk for a cellar visit and an indoor lunch and save the coast for the next dry window. Two of the three heavy days usually arrive attached to a front, so a forecast read the night before is worth more than any fixed plan.

Alentejo in November vs October and December

All three months come from the same IPMA station and the same 1991-2020 period, so the comparison is clean. Daytime warmth falls 11.7°F from October to November, then another 5.4°F into December. Rainfall barely moves: 3.21, 3.39 and 3.35 inches, with rain days at 7.7, 8.8 and 8.7. We could not verify a sea-surface series for this coast in any of the three months, so nobody should pick a month here on water temperature, ours included.

Shift four weeks earlier and you buy back 11.7°F of afternoon and one fewer rain day, at the cost of harvest-season company in the wine country. Shift four weeks later and you keep essentially the same rain, lose 5.4°F of daytime and 4.7°F of night, and land in the holiday weeks. The month before this one is laid out in full in Alentejo in October, and the twelve-month view sits in the best time to visit Portugal.

Is November a good time to visit Alentejo?

Yes, if you came to walk, drive, eat and look at things. A 63.7°F afternoon is close to ideal for hill towns and open country, and the quiet is real. No, if the trip depends on beach days or long outdoor evenings: the light is gone at 5:19 pm, and with no verified water temperature we will not pretend the coast is swimmable.

If the answer is no, the month to take instead is October rather than December. October holds 75.4°F afternoons and 54.1°F nights with slightly less rain across 7.7 days, which is the warmest version of this landscape still free of high-summer heat. December offers no rain relief at all, 8.7 days against 8.8, and asks 5.4°F of daytime warmth in return.

What only November does: it puts the comfortable part of the day at noon and the dark sky at dinner time, in the same 24 hours.

The last word

Book the car and stop trying to outguess the rain. Of the month’s 8.8 wet dates, only 3.1 reach 0.39 inch, which leaves about five or six that are light enough to walk straight through in a shell. Keep one refundable night in the plan, aim the drives at the warm middle of the day, and let the 5:19 pm sunset decide when dinner starts.

Sources & data for this guide

• November, October and December normals, 1991-2020 · IPMA, station 558 Évora, altitude 247.6 m · checked Sep 23, 2026
• Rain-day counts at the 1 mm (0.04 in) and 10 mm (0.39 in) thresholds · IPMA, same station and period · checked Sep 23, 2026
• Sunrise 07:12 and sunset 17:19 UTC on November 15, converted to local time · sunrise-sunset.org · checked Sep 23, 2026
• Sea-surface temperature for the Alentejo coast · we could not verify a series, so no water figure appears
• Occupancy, room rates and municipal tourist-tax rates · we could not verify figures for Alentejo municipalities, so we give no percentages
• Monument hours, admission prices and winter closures are editorial and change · confirm with each site when you book

To plan your stay

• Things to Do in the Alentejo: Évora, the Almendres Stones, Alqueva's Dark Sky and the Wine Towns
• Best Time to Visit the Alentejo: Weather Month by Month, Summer Heat and the Quiet Season
• Alentejo in October: Weather, Rain Days, Crowds and a Two-Day Plan
• Alentejo in December: Weather, Rain Days and a Two-Day Plan

Nearby places

• Évora, Portugal: the Roman Temple, the Walled Center and the Train from Lisbon
• Cascais, Portugal: the Town Beaches, Guincho and Where to Stay
• Ericeira, Portugal: the Surf Reserve, the Beaches by Level and Where to Stay