How long do you need in Beja?
Beja is small and it is dense, which is a good combination. Half a day is enough for the historic centre on foot: our morning walking route covers roughly 1.8 km, garden to castle, and runs about three to three and a half hours with the stops. A full day adds the part most visitors miss, which is a long Alentejo lunch and then the late afternoon, when the heat lifts and the town comes back out into its squares. Two days is the point where the region opens up: the Roman villa at São Cucufate, the vineyards at Vidigueira, or the drive down to Mértola.
If you only have a few hours between a train and a bus, do the top of the hill: the Sé, the castle and the keep, then come down for coffee in the Praça da República. That is a genuinely good short visit, not a consolation prize.
How the town fits together
The historic centre sits on a low hill above the wheat plain, and almost everything on this page is inside a fifteen-minute walk of everything else. The Jardim Público and the convents are at the bottom, the shops and cafes are in the middle around the Praça da República, and the Sé and the castle are at the top. Walking up in the morning and back down for lunch is the natural shape of a Beja day, and it is the shape the heat imposes for half the year.
Arriving without a car is easy: the train station is about 950 m below the centre and the bus terminal about 1.2 km, so both are roughly a quarter of an hour on foot and neither needs a taxi. Both walks are uphill. If you are driving, park outside the old streets and walk in; inside they are narrow and parking is scarce. Full detail in getting to Beja from Lisbon.
Beyond the centre
Three things are worth the wheels. São Cucufate, about twenty minutes out, is a Roman villa that was later lived in as a monastery, standing on its own among the vines with almost nobody there. Vidigueira, twenty minutes north, is the oldest wine country in the Alentejo and the easiest half day from town. Mértola is 50 km south, about 45 minutes, and keeps the only medieval mosque left standing in Portugal; we wrote it up as a day trip.
When to come, and what is shut
Spring and autumn are the comfortable seasons. In high summer the town takes the middle of the day off and so should you: sights in the morning, a long lunch, then out again after five. Winter is quiet, cold at night, and the light over the plain is at its best.
Two things to check rather than assume. The Museu Rainha D. Leonor, in the Convento da Conceição, is currently closed, so the convent is an exterior stop; it loses less than you would think. And the traditional lunch houses keep weekly closing days, commonly Sunday evening and Monday, with some closing for holidays in August. Confirm on the day at the Posto de Turismo by the castle, and see where to eat in Beja for the list and the phone numbers.