Melides, Alentejo coast, Portugal
Nine rooms on a cork-oak hill. The beach is four minutes by car.
Casa Junco sits above the Melides lagoon, twenty-five minutes on foot from the water and one hour twenty from Lisbon airport. Book on this page and the same room costs 12% less than it does on Booking.com. Why? Because the 15% to 18% a listing site takes never enters the rate in the first place.
Arrive
Pick a date
Minimum nights
1 winter / 2 spring / 4 summer / 7 August
Guests
2 adults
See the calendar
The numbers, including the two we do not control.
Booking.com and Google score us on reviews we cannot curate, so those scores are printed here rather than left in the tab you came from.
The room in the photo is never the room they hand you.
You have done this before. The listing shows one corner of one room, shot on a lens that makes 14 square metres look like 30. You arrive at four in the afternoon and the window faces the bins. In fact, the only thing those photos reliably tell you is which room the owner is proudest of, and the 15% to 18% the listing site took is already inside the rate you paid.
You cannot tell which room you are getting
Most sites sell you a room type, then assign the actual room at check-in. You find out at 4pm with a suitcase in your hand.
The best price has the commission in it
A listing site takes 15% to 18% of every booking. That money does not come out of the hotel’s pocket, it sits inside the nightly rate you are quoted.
Nobody answers a real question
Ask whether the lagoon path floods in March and you get a chat widget, a form, and a reply forty hours later that does not answer it.
How this page works
You pick the room. By its name, its floor, and which way the window faces.
Every one of the nine rooms has its own page, its own floor plan in real metres, and eleven photographs shot on the same 35mm lens with no filter and no wide-angle stretch. The room you choose here is the key you are handed at the door. Why? Because there are only nine of them, and moving somebody out of the room they picked is how a small house loses people for good.
One lens, no stretch
35mm, natural light, shot in February and again in July so you can see the house in both.
Floor plan with real numbers
Square metres, ceiling height, bed size, and the compass direction of every window.
The number is on your confirmation
Room 4 means Room 4. Nobody gets moved, including in August.
Nine rooms. Here are six of them, with what is true about each.
Prices shown are the low-season direct rate, per night for two, breakfast included. April to June adds 30 EUR a night, July to September adds 80 EUR. The listing-site price for the identical room sits in grey beside it.
01 Junco
18 m2 / Ground floor / N window
The coolest room in the house in August, and the smallest in it.
From 165 EUR
188 EUR
02 Sobreiro
24 m2 / First floor / E and S windows
The one people ask for by name, so it goes early.
From 195 EUR
222 EUR
04 Mare
26 m2 / First floor / W corner
Sea light after 5pm but no sea view. We would rather say so now than at check-in.
From 195 EUR
222 EUR
06 Forno
21 m2 / Ground floor / N window
Built into the old bread-oven wall. Thick walls, very dark at night, warm in winter.
From 175 EUR
199 EUR
07 Cegonha
31 m2 / Top floor / S terrace
Private terrace, stork nest on the chimney opposite from March to August. Three flights of stairs and no lift.
From 245 EUR
279 EUR
09 Poente
28 m2 / First floor / W window
The only room where you can watch the sun go down without getting out of bed. It faces the lane, so you hear the occasional car until about ten.
From 235 EUR
267 EUR
The next sixty nights
Filled blocks are taken / updated 28 August 2026
September
October
November
Room 01
Room 02
Room 03
Room 04
Room 05
Room 06
Room 07
Room 08
Room 09
The same three nights in Room 02, side by side.
Checked 28 August 2026
Priced for 12 to 15 May 2026, two adults, checked on the morning of 28 August 2026. We redo this table on the first of every month and print the date on it, because a comparison nobody dates is a comparison nobody should believe. One row goes to them, and we have left it exactly where it fell.
This page
Booking.com
Three nights, Room 02 Sobreiro
€675 for the three nights. You keep €93, and there is no code to enter for it.
€768.
Which room you actually get
Room 02 Sobreiro, printed on your confirmation.
A room type called Double Superior, and which of the nine it turns out to be is decided at the desk at 4pm.
Free cancellation
Until seven days before arrival. They win this row outright and we are not going to dress it up. A nine-room house cannot absorb a room lost the night before, so what we trade back is a free date change until 48 hours out, or the whole 30% held as credit for twelve months.
Until 24 hours before arrival.
Who replies, and how fast
Nuno, from his own address, usually inside four hours between 8am and 9pm.
A message thread routed through their system, which we read when they release it to us.
Check-out
2pm, no charge, no asking.
11am, late check-out on request and refused most of August.
Breakfast and tourist tax
Breakfast included, and the Grândola tourist tax of €2 per person per night for the first seven nights is shown before you pay, €12 on this stay.
Breakfast included, tax collected at the property and never inside the number you just compared.
01
Pick the actual room
The calendar shows all nine rooms as separate lines. What is grey is gone, and it updates the second somebody books.
02
Pay 30% now
The balance goes on the same card seven days before you arrive. Nothing is charged in between.
03
Get an email from Nuno
Written by him, not by a template. Reply to it with any question, including the awkward ones about the drive.
04
Cancel free until seven days out
Full refund inside three working days. Inside seven days, move the dates or take the credit instead.
The long table
Dinner is at eight, at one long table, and you should say yes.
Four nights a week Rita cooks whatever came off the boats at Carrasqueira that morning and out of the garden that afternoon. One menu, €38 a head, Alentejo wine included. Guests who skip it on the first night have a habit of booking it for every night after.
Tuesday to Friday, 8pm
20.00 / two sittings in August, 20.00 and 21.30
Saturday, Sunday and Monday the village restaurants are better than we are, and Nuno will tell you which one to walk to.
€38 a head, wine included
38 EUR per head / decide by 15.00 on the day
Add it when you book, or decide by 3pm on the day. Cancel it by 3pm too.
One menu, cooked once
14 seats / one service
Tell us about allergies at booking and Rita cooks around them rather than cooking you something separate and sad.
February and July, shot on the same lens in the same rooms, with nothing retouched.
Four of the twenty-eight photographs of the house as it actually is. If a wall is chipped you will see the chip.
Room 07, July. The terrace takes full sun from noon. There is a shade sail and it works.
July 13.10
The hill at 7.40am. Fog sits in the valley until about nine, November through March.
November 07.40
The long table. Seats fourteen. In August we run two sittings, 8pm and 9.30.
August 21.30
The lagoon path. Twenty-five minutes on foot to the water, four by car. It floods twice most winters and we tell you before you book.
March 08.20
Guests
What people write after they have gone home
Lifted from the emails guests send back, printed with their permission and their first name only. The aggregate scores are at the top of this page, where Booking.com and Google keep them.
I booked Room 09 because the page said it was the only room where you can watch the sunset from the bed, and warned me I would hear cars until ten. Both turned out to be exactly, literally true. I have never had a hotel be so boring about the truth and I loved it.
Anna R., Copenhagen / four nights, March 2026
We had booked a place in Comporta first and moved here after one night. It cost us that first night and it was still the best decision of the trip. The Thursday dinner is worth the drive on its own.
Marc D., Lyon / six nights, September 2025
I asked whether the lagoon path was walkable with a toddler, given it is twenty-five minutes each way. I got a reply the same evening with a photograph of the path taken that morning. That is the moment I booked.
Priya S., London / three nights, June 2025
Rates and seasons
What a night here actually costs
Rates are for two, breakfast included. The Grândola tourist tax of €2 per person per night for the first seven nights is added at checkout and goes to the council, not to us. The direct rate is 12% under every listing site on every date, with no code to remember.
Low season, November to March
1 night minimum
One-night stays are fine. The sitting-room fire is lit at five and there is no television in the building.
from
€165
Shoulder, April to June and October
2 night minimum
The best walking weather of the year, and the lagoon is empty by four.
from
€195
High, July to September
4 night minimum / 7 in August
August runs Saturday to Saturday, seven nights. Book by March or take what is left.
from
€245
Every booking made on this page
no code to remember
12% under the listing sites, free cancellation to seven days out, free date changes to 48 hours out, 2pm checkout, and the room number you chose printed on the confirmation.
direct rate
-12%
See the calendar
Dinner at the long table
Tuesday to Friday, 20.00
€38 a head with wine included. Added to any room when you book, or decided by 3pm on the day. Cancellable by 3pm too.
add on
+€38
Before you book
Seven questions people email Nuno before they book
Why is your own site cheaper than Booking.com?
Booking.com takes 15% to 18% of every reservation. We would rather hand that to you than to them. The room, the bed and the breakfast are identical; only the price moves, and it moves 12% on every date of the year.
Booking.com lets me cancel the day before. Why do you not?
Because a nine-room house cannot absorb it. One room lost the night before is 11% of everything this house earns that night, and there is nobody to fill it at that notice in Melides in February. So we ask for seven days and we trade you something back for it: change your dates free until 48 hours before arrival, or take the whole 30% as credit good for twelve months. If your dates are genuinely uncertain, book it on Booking.com and email Nuno once the flights are firm, and he will move you across at the direct rate.
Is it actually on the beach?
No. The house is on a hill 2.1 km from Melides beach, twenty-five minutes on the lagoon path and four minutes by car. Nothing here is on the beach, because the whole stretch of coast is protected and nobody is allowed to build on it. That is the reason it is still empty.
Do I need a car?
Yes, unless you plan to stay on the hill the whole time, which some people do. Lisbon airport is 1h20. We can arrange a driver for €135 each way with three days of notice.
What if the weather turns?
Between November and March it rains about eight days a month. There is a fire, four hundred books, and a kitchen that will feed you at any hour. Some of our best-reviewed stays happen in February.
Can you hold a room while I check flights?
For 48 hours, once, by email. Ask Nuno and he will put a hold on it.
What happens to my deposit if I cancel?
Cancel more than seven days before arrival and all 30% comes back within three working days, no form and no phone call. Inside seven days we keep it and put the room back on the calendar, or you move it to credit for twelve months instead. Your choice, and Nuno will offer it before you have to ask.
Nine rooms, and August is usually gone by March.
Check the calendar for your dates. If the room you want is taken, tell Nuno which one and he will email you the day it opens up. To date, 4,120 nights have been booked on this page instead of through a listing site.
+351 269 402 118 / Nuno answers between 8am and 9pm