Making hotel reservations in Portugal

I will be using the rail system when I travel to Portugal and had a question about reserving hotel rooms in advance.  I was wondering if it would be best to reserve hotel stays in advance in each place I plan to visit or would it be best to just take the train to each destination than look for a room.  I will be in Portugal for around three weeks and want as much flexibility as possible but don't want to be stuck with no room,  Also, would it be more expensive to book rooms in each town I visit versus just booking them on-line.

Thank you

Hi palmtree22,

To me it looks like you've answered your own question. "... but don't want to be stuck with no room." The only way to be 100% certain of that is to reserve.

There should be no difference in the rate whether you're booking in person or online. This may not necessarily be the case with booking through travel agents, some larger agencies book up blocks of unreserved rooms and unload them at a discount; others charge slightly higher than the hotel's actual rate.

Since you're talking about Portugual it would be advisable if you can speak the language, at least well enough to make reservations via e-mail or read the information on the hotels' websites.

Cheers,
William James Woodward - Brazil Animator, Expat-blog Team

hmm,it never occured to me that not speaking the language might make it difficult to communicate to hotels to arrange a room!  I have traveled to several latin american countries but always booked online so i never thought about it.  thanks