Palacete Barão de Forrester

Rooms need renovation

Great accomodation, nice personel, good food.

We visited this pousada with two Portuguese friends who had never been there. The pousada is well situated in Alijo with a tranquil atmosphere. The rooms were comfortable and well appointed with a view over the patio area. The lounge area is spacious and comfortable. Loved the meals which featured local dishes with local ingredients. The wines are wonderful and the waiter's knowledge an education. Breakfast was traditionally Portuguese and delicious. What made our stay perfect was the gentleman on reception. He was welcoming and very helpful with a vast knowledge of the area and places to go. This pousada is well worth a visit.

When we arrived we were given room 201. This was a standard room and in accordance with our booking (booked via a travel agency in connection with our hiking week in the Douro Valley). The room was OK albeit a little dark. No balcony, but only few rooms at the Pousada have one. So not unexpected. But upon enquiry with reception for an extra charge of 10 Euro a night we got room 104, which was a much bigger room, with a lot of character, and probably with the best balcony of all the rooms. It made our stay so much more enjoyable. The shower was a little strange, but it worked, and the towels were really big (always a plus in my book). We stayed two nights and had dinner in the restaurant one of the nights. Excellent food and really good and professional service – and very reasonably priced. Smooth check-in, very friendly reception staff. Our booking included lunch packages for our hikes each day, and these were very nice and included plastic containers with a nice fresh salat. Much appreciated. This hotel was the only one during our hiking week that provided paper tissues. The only thing we missed in the room was an electric kettle.

An absolute gem of a small but very comfortable hotel in the Douro area, convenient for walking and wine tours. The rooms are comfortable and stylish with small touches that you don’t get with the big chain hotels. There is a comfortable lounge and bar area and the staff could not be more friendly and welcoming. Food is excellent

Ar the end of a long walk, we arrived at Alijó and then to the already booked pousado and finished with a dive in the pool. Also had diner there. Good food and extremely friendly staff Enjoyed the evening.

the staff were all exceptionally helpful. Room large and airy, but the star of our stay was the exceptional food. Slow cooked food of the country made with love and served with imagination. Our 5 star dishes were breadcrumbed shrimps( they were langoustines) with an outstanding black aioli, and a most delicious partridge casseroled with mushrooms, port, grapes and chestnuts. As you would expect in this region the wines were superb and it would have been rude not to finish the meal with a wonderful local port. Bravo all, we loved your hotel!

One night stop on a walking tour. Extra dry White Port tonics in the cool bar and a dip in the lovely pool were very enjoyable after walking in 32 degrees. Our meal in the restaurant was superb and the waiter’s assistance with the wine choice much appreciated. Rooms were very comfortable and quiet even though you are in the heart of a small market town. Great base for a 1 night stay on our tour.

We had booked three nights at this hotel but cut the trip short and just stayed for two. Firstly the location is poor - I know I am contradicting some earlier reviews but this is as we saw it. We thought we were in the Douro Valley area, we were just on the edge. Alijo is a town that seemed to have moved on from the wine business, a lot of buildings were fairly new and not in keeping with elsewhere. The outlook from the hotel is over a school which is noisy at times and a park area. One wonders whether vineyards were taken up to build these. The hotel itself is a handsome building with a great terrace and a (not very clean) pool in its grounds. There does not appear to be any connection with Baron Forrester, strange choice of name for it. There has been some refurbishment, there was a great bar and most of the public rooms were great. Our bedroom was good with a Juliet balcony overlooking the terrace (and the school, one morning they had a VERY loud event starting at 7.30am, that was the last straw for my husband) however the bathroom was dingy, with a gruesome shower curtain and mould around the edges of the bath. In the room there was no safe, tea/coffee making facilities, no fridge let alone a minibar - just the space for it?! Old fashioned hair dryer in the bathroom. Air conditioning wouldn't be switched on 'until Monday' despite it being 30 deg. This was the fourth Pousada we had stayed in on this trip and was a big disappointment. We had driven through the Douro Alto on the Tua road to get there and had high hopes as to what it would be like. We did discover it is 'franchised' to Pestana rather than owned and run by them. We had dinner there the first time which was not good, tasteless under seasoned lump of veal for me, undercooked rabbit for my husband. Breakfast was fine and lunch on the terrace very nice. Staff generally were great though sometimes hard to find. We couldn't face dining there a second night and had scoped out places in the town which looked a bit basic... to be told that chef had Covid and the restaurant was closed. Possibly because of that they did not charge us for the last night when we checked out in the morning. Husband was told the printer was u/s so they couldn't print off the receipt. You couldn't make it up...