Pousada Convento de Beja – Historic Hotel

Pousada Convento Beja is a great stopover place when visiting the Alentejo area, that covers 1/3 of Portugal! A quaint town too, with local life around every corner. The pool is fabulous, biiiiig breakfast! Peaceful and with an interesting history and its own gothic chapel! Highly recommended!

Wonderful hotel - quiet and serene! Hotel staff were friendly and very helpful - especially the restaurant staff who did their best to improve my very poor Portuguese! The facilities are good but don't expect a tournament level tennis court! Highly recommend a short stay here or even a week or so - there is plenty to see in the neighbouring area. You will need a car tho'.

The building and location score highly. And the garden is pleasant, though the swimming pool is spoilt by having steps and a sloping floor on two adjacent sides so it is impossible to swim from end to end without hitting the bottom as you approach a sidewall. The dinner was poor. After enjoying a delicious, traditionally prepared 'gazpacho' on arrival at lunchtime, I couldn't resist ordering the same again. Except it was different: this time it was a bowl of watery, olive-oily liquid full of minutely diced veg. Horrible. As if the chef had forgotten to liquidise the dish which was, apparently, in the Alentejano style. Left uneaten. So, on to the main course: fillet steak. I chewed my first mouthful, and chewed, and chewed. And gave up. I hid it under the accompanying 'sweet' potato mash - which was bitter and uneatable. The ice cream for dessert was good! Apart from the gastronomic disappointment, the bedroom too left something to be desired. The bathroom was tired, the wired-in hairdryer cut out every few seconds (we were given a replacement plug-in one), and the fixed overhead shower didn't work so we had to shower by holding the flexible shower in one hand instead: not comfortable at all. In the bedroom proper, the electric sockets were virtually all at floor level - not convenient for our travel kettle for wake-up coffee (as there are no coffee-making facilities provided), and we had to have someone come to switch off wall lights because we hadn't spotted the switches on the side of a small bedside table, hidden hard up against the mattress. Which reminds me: the pillows were poor, one flat and empty, the other too big and hard. The mattress was too hard for my arthritic hips too. But everywhere was clean, and the staff were friendly and helpful. Apart from the food (constantly criticised in reviews: can't something be done?), my criticisms are minor irritants, really. Sort out the food and I'd put up with the irritants on another visit.

The suite was large with a large bathroom. The air-conditioning could be better. The cleaning staff and reception staff were lovely and helpful. The staff serving breakfast struggled to understand Portuguese. One of the staff at the bar made some weird/unwelcome comments. The water in the pool was dirty with lots of air in suspension. If you subtract the quality of the water and some failures from the staff the place is fine.

This is a lovely place to stay in Beja. It is centrally placed near the town centre and restaurants. We loved the pool, which very few people used. Breakfasts were good. We’d read some bad reviews about the restaurant but our evening meal there was fine. The seafood linguini was fabulous!! It was slightly more expensive but it had a lovely atmosphere. It was great dining in such splendour.

Stayed here for 1 night in April 2022. Truly unique hotel. Beautiful historic building with interesting areas to explore. Fantastic breakfast. Beautiful pool area. Staff were very friendly and helpful. Very good courtyard vehicle parking area. The Pousada is also very well located in the town, with short easy walking to town centro, restaurants, etc. Beja is well worth a stay of 1 night or longer.