The Best Places To Visit In Portugal: Cities, Beaches and Offbeat Gems

Positioned at the edge of Western Europe and the end of what was once the known world, Portugal sent the great voyagers of the Renaissance out to sail the globe and discover its wonders. Today that proud nautical history is just one of many attractions drawing more and more inbound explorers from overseas for family beach holidays, romantic weekend breaks and cross-country road trips. The best places to visit in Portugal might start with the capital, Lisbon, but they also range to distant secluded coves and half-forgotten fort towns far off the beaten track.

Mainland Portugal forms a kind of upright rectangle, with the big cities and beach resorts running down the Atlantic coast, and smaller rural towns and villages scattered inland toward the Spanish border. There are many islands to consider too, dotted just offshore from the Algarve or way out in the ocean where the Azores form an archipelago of lush volcanic ecosystems. So, whether you're looking to sip port in riverside cellars, walk the walls of historic castles or track sperm whales on their seasonal migrations, our handy guide will help you plan your own Portuguese voyage of discovery.

Urban Portugal is heavily concentrated around two vast river estuaries, the Tagus and the Douro, and the mighty maritime cities built where they meet the sea. Within those tidal zones are smaller cities with a quieter appeal.

The Portuguese capital is booming these days, rising from a revitalised waterfront through distinct and atmospheric hillside neighbourhoods to São Jorge Castle at the very top. Vintage trams and elevators carry you to spectacular lookouts, gorgeous plazas and ancient Roman ruins, while the cultural offer ranges from cutting-edge modern art museums to Lisbon's own sad and beautiful songs of the sea, performed in traditional fado houses. It's a great city for shopping and fine dining too, with many of the best boutiques and restaurants laid out along or around the grand thoroughfare of Avenida da Liberdade.

With its dazzling Romanesque façade and celestial blue azulejo tiling, Porto Cathedral has long been a major landmark on the pilgrim trail into Spain along the Camino de Santiago. Many hikers still pass this way en route, but Porto is no less beloved by readers for its iconic bookstores, or by the connoisseurs who come for tours and tastings at riverside port houses where the city's namesake wine has been made for centuries.

Though small and compact, Braga's walkable historic core is densely packed with Gothic churches, Baroque portals and ornate 18th-century palaces. Among Portugal's oldest cities, its culture and cuisine still favour strong folkloric customs like traditional vira music and rustic recipes like bacalhau à Braga (cod with potato and onion). A stay at ibis Braga Centro gives you a home base for one of the best places to visit in Portugal.

The former Portuguese capital is a pretty little university city with a low-key grandiosity, centred on a medieval Old Town and gorgeous college buildings like the Baroque library of Biblioteca Joanina, and a soaring 18th-century bell tower. You're also within 45 minutes' drive of Aveiro, known as the "Venice of Portugal" for its charming canals and gondola-style wooden boats known as moliceiros.

Many of the best places to visit in Portugal are laid out along some 820 km of shoreline, reaching from sheltered cliffside coves to expanses of golden sand. Offshore, meanwhile, the Atlantic swells create some of the world's most ideal surf conditions.

The southern limits of the mainland offer some of the best places to visit in Portugal for beach holidays. Lagos has a good mix of family-friendly seaside and rugged limestone coves; Carvoeiro packs a lot of fun into its lovely sandy bay between high cliffs; Sagres rises from a chain of high, soft dunes and rolling surf breaks to a famous fortress high above the water.

Raided many times over the centuries by Vikings and varied pirate fleets, Nazaré has lately become a world capital of big-wave surfing. An undersea canyon gives rise to huge mountains of surface water that the best in the world come to ride, and even watching from the landmark lighthouse can be a thrilling experience. Down at ground level, the main town and beach have their own magnetic energy in summer and windswept charm off-season.

Another surf mecca with hard-packed sand and cold, curling waves, this buzzing resort area breaks down into 13 separate beaches. Each has a slightly different vibe determined by the sea conditions – Praia dos Pescadores is calm enough for swimming with family while Ribeira d'Ilhas is best for serious wave-riders. Seafood restaurants in the lovely blue-on-white Old Town are renowned for dishes like sopa rica do mar, a chunky broth of monkfish, lobster and clams.

Many of Portugal's lesser-visited gems lead you far from the sea and toward the Spanish border, where whole strategic villages were built to protect from invasion in periods of conflict and intrigue like the Restoration War of the mid-17th century. Today these historic points of defence make fascinating diversions on road trips.

• Óbidos: Known as the "Queen's Village", this is one of Portugal's busier medieval redoubts, easily accessible from Lisbon. Walk the fully intact castle walls and stop beneath the battlements to try ginja, the signature local cherry liqueur served in little edible chocolate cups.

• Monsanto: They call this "the most Portuguese village in Portugal", a hilltop stronghold with houses carved directly into solid slabs and boulders of surrounding granite.

• Almeida: Among the best places to visit in Portugal for military history aficionados and engineering buffs, this small town was entirely built within the 12 points of a star-shaped fort.

• Sortelha: A cluster of stonebuilt houses with honey-coloured rooftops enclosed by thick castle walls, this rugged but stunningly pretty fort town is around 800 years old.

• Marialva: Even older than it looks, the hilltop citadel above this tiny time-warped village with Gothic gates and cobbled streets was built over the ruin of an ancient settlement founded by the pre-Christian Aravo tribe.

Some of the above are a little harder to reach than other popular Portuguese destinations, but the inland border and its "defensive line" of historic villages is still only a couple of hours' drive from big cities like Lisbon. Even closer is the "spiritual city" of Fátima, where you can launch expeditions from the comfort of the modern Mercure Fátima Hotel, with its optimal location close to the Sanctuary of Our Lady and other holy sites.

Set apart from the wedge-like main landmass, some of the best places to visit in Portugal are found offshore among the country's 11 inhabited islands. Options range from short-hop day trips to far-flung destinations that seem to present a different world altogether.

• Ilha da Culatra: Less than half an hour by ferry or water taxi from the Algarve port of Olhão, Culatra forms a dramatic barrier island with traditional fishing villages perched over glinting sand and azure sea.
• São Miguel Island: The largest island in the Azores chain looks like the Earth when it was young. Think volcanoes, hot springs, crater lakes and exotic flowers found nowhere else. The waters teem with marine life, not least the mighty sperm whales you can spot on expeditions from the gateway port of Ponta Delgada.

Whether you're an art-lover on a culture trip, a gourmand with a taste for salt cod or a sporty sort scouting for surf camps, the best places to visit in Portugal have you covered for every kind of holiday. Keen to find out more? Discover our guide to Lisbon's top sights, with advice for solo travellers but equally handy if you're travelling with family or friends.