Rick Steves Lovingly Calls This Rustic Region Dotted With Ancient Villages The Appalachia Of Portugal

From the tile-fronted palaces of Lisbon and Porto to salt-washed surfer beaches on the Silver Coast and off-the-beaten-track cliffside villages in the Algarve, Portugal is laced with temptations for the would-be traveler. But as the country posts record tourism stats — they say a whopping 30 million people visited in 2024 — the search for the real Portugal can seem harder than ever. Not to worry. Trusty Rick Steves, European travel advice maestro since 1976, thinks he's found a region that oozes rawness, cultural riches, and authenticity. Its name? Alentejo.

The name means "beyond the Tejo," and this big slab of the country duly extends from the Tejo River south of Lisbon, bridging the gap between the capital and the ultra-famous Algarve. But unlike the beachy tourist paradise and coastal cities of its sunny neighbor, and sprawling Lisbon with its three million inhabitants, Alentejo has retained its age-old character. They say it's like Portugal was in decades past: a place of cork plantations, farms, slow living, and untouched beaches. Tempting, eh?

The good news is that Alentejo's location — the Algarve on one side, Lisbon to the north — means that it's easy to get to. Jet into Lisbon's Humberto Delgado Airport, rent a car, and you can be in the region's evocative capital, Évora, in about 1.5 hours. Alternatively, fly into Faro International Airport in the Algarve and it's possible to cross into the southern Alentejo in just an hour. Direct trains also link Lisbon and Évora throughout the day, while buses can get you to the smaller, charming coast towns of Sines and Vila Nova de Milfontes.

An unhurried pace, a deep connection to its roots, and the preponderance of farming communities — these are the things that lead Rick Steves to conclude that Alentejo is Portugal's Appalachia. More than that, it's the deep sense of pride in the comparative simplicity of life here. This is very much not Lisbon and the locals like it that way.

Nowhere is all that more palpable than in the ancient villages that dot the interior of Alentejo. Get lost in the tight-knit streets of Monsaraz. It caps a hillside nearer to the Spanish border than to the Atlantic Ocean, glimmering from afar thanks to its white-painted cottages. Its main piazza has a schist-stone church from the 1500s, but there are megalithic stones dating back over 5,000 years in the surrounding countryside. Then there's Estremoz, one of the region's "white cities" (you'll see why), hemmed in by mighty walls more than three centuries old.

Évora is the cultural heart of the region — it's even been an official European capital of culture. One of the main cities, it's a bit larger than the ancient villages, but still sports a beautifully half-ruined temple raised by the Romans and haunting late-medieval chapels made entirely of bones. Landmarks aside, though, Steves recommends simply settling in at a tavern and soaking in the atmosphere of Évora as the evening plays out.

While the chic and stylish beaches of Cascais and the legendary cliff-backed coves of the Algarve continue to make headlines, Alentejo quietly goes on flaunting some of the very best sands in the country — some say even the best in Europe. There are just over 90 miles of coastline here, ranging through sand stretches that seem to go on forever and secret inlets watched over by big headlands.

The piece de resistance of the Alentejo shore has to be the utterly breathtaking Costa Vicentina. Called one of last coastal frontiers on the continent for its wave-lashed topography of high cliffs and sea boulders, the area oozes that rawness and authenticity Steves waxes lyrical about. However, it's slowly becoming home to boutique B&Bs and surfer hangouts to boot.

Within the borders of the Costa Vicentina, you can discover one of the dreamiest cliffside towns in Portugal at Zambujeira do Mar, where the surrounding beaches have uber-clear water below colossal walls of rock. Similarly, there's Vila Nova de Milfontes — a chilled place for wave lovers that's a stepping stone to surf beaches like Praia do Malhao and Furnas.