Hotels near Vila Real Airport - VRL, Vila Real

Other than a nice central church (Sé) and half a dozen historical buildings which can be seen in a couple of hours, Vila Real is one of the least interesting cities in Portugal, with a very ugly and disordinate built environment. Most buildings from the 70's and 80's with poor design. The 'must see' item is by far the Palácio MATEUS on the outskirts of the city (in Mateus on the South entrance to Vila Real), an architectural masterpiece and an iconic place full of history and a beatiful setting.

Vila Real is at the top of the mountains in the Douro Region. It has extremely beautiful views, the city is nice and it has a lot of nature around it. You have many restaurants with typical food that are cheap. If you like eating, wine and mountains it's a perfect stay.

Breakfast was lovely! All locally produced foods, eggs cheese and bread! Fresh orange juice! We had no tv in our room ( some rooms do have tv’s) but this wasn’t a big deal! Would have appreciated another mirror-in the main bedroom as the the bathroom had the only one but again we managed. I had my tablet so accessed everything I needed on that. The honesty shop sold wine beer bread and snacks at vey reasonable prices! Ginas restaurant down the road was great and very cheap

The location was the best but you cannot go for walks - the location is best for visiting Mateus. It is outside the town. The dining room has classical interior but what spoils it is a large tv screen blaring out programmes like in a motorway restaiurant

The staff is very friendly and helpful, particularly Angela - who helped us with the reservation and with excellent hints and tourist information after our arrival. The place is an oasis of environmental tranquility, having beautiful gardens, trees, birds and an overall ecological approach. Vila Real is also pet friendly, which for us represented an enormous advantage. If a hotel does not accept our dog we would not patronize it. The location is excellent, not far from the city centre, from the House of Mateus and not far from the Douro Valley vineyards. The breakfast was good and the service always friendly. Excellent, we do recommend Vila Real.

There is a good choice of restaurants and bars in town. Same goes for shops - no big stores but quite a lot of independent small businesses. There is a walkway across the valley which takes you past streams and small waterfalls and is worth the effort. The walkway has been re-furbished and is worth the effort to go across. Best to wear trainers or similar.