The *somewhat* frugal beach holiday in Portugal

A few months back, new friend Ian and I went to Portugal. Portugal has been an elusive one for me for a few years. Back in 2003 when I first arrived in Europe, there were a lot of cheap flights and travel, but over the years it seemed to dry up. Portugal was never a cheap flight from my corner of Germany though, so I was pleased to finally go.

The flight and transport:
Living (relatively) near Stansted means that we're somewhat limited in our flight selection. Love them or hate them, Ryanair runs the show over there, so you're hard pressed to find a cheaper flight option, unless it's a country specific one like AirBerlin to Germany.
-I had a few requirements--I wanted to go to the beach.
-Ian had a few requirements--he didn't want to go on (another) 6 AM Ryanair flight, he wanted a more civilized time.

We were somewhat lucky in that we were both flexible on when we could go. We held off until September (the beginning of school sessions), and prices dropped.

I found three cheap Ryanair flights--2 in Spain, 1 in Portugal. We ended up with Stansted to Faro for 83 GBP each, which included all their silly taxes and baggage fees, and a civilized flight take-off time of 09.25.

We skipped parking at the airport because the airport bus is easy to take and parking is expensive. Ten GBP gets you a roundtrip ticket on the nice, direct bus and it leaves you 2 minutes walk from the check-in desks.

On the arriving end, I had pre-booked a reputable transport company [Algarve-365 Airport Transfers (transfers@algarve-365.com)] to take us to and from the Airport to our hotel in Albufiera. They are staffed by UK folks living in Portugal, so our driver was a great source of info on the local area. We didn't want to deal with the hassle of renting a car, or a never-ending shuttle bus run to multiple hotels. So we paid 60 Euros for the roundtrip transport. With two or more people, it's a great way to go.

The Hotel

Now that Easyjet and Ryanair have come to Faro, the surrounding beaches are overrun with Brits. In addition, the market is mainly filled with the gigantic, all-inclusive hotels. We were looking for something a little smaller and quieter.

We ended up choosing the Albufeira area due to its reputation for nice beaches. I searched far and wide for a hotel. I searched through the Spanish sites in addition to see what I could find.

We went with Residencial Mar a Vista, a smaller hotel of five floors located at the top of one of the winding hills. The area is very hilly. It was only 150 metres away from Peneco beach, but it was pure treading uphill at the end of the day. We liked the exercise, so it was great. Five nights came in at 173 Euros total (excluded breakfast) and we didn't see a single Brit there. It was a smaller, cozy hotel set a distance from the loud discos and such. The steep walk ensured that it attracted more of a Portuguese crowd, or some other healthy Europeans.

There was an option to get breakfast for an additional 5 EUR per day, we tried it one day. The difficulty on this point is that I am not a breakfast person, only coffee, so I'm always peeved at the thought of overpaying for coffee only. Ian isn't a huge breakfast person, so we tended to pick him up a sandwich on the way.

If you did happen to be going to this hotel--the site where breakfast is located is beautiful, if you can get the two outside tables overlooking the ocean, but the sun glare off of it is immense. It's nothing fancy for breakfast--bread rolls, cheese, salami, and a choice of cereals.

A much better option--which we did--was to stop at the neighborhood supermarket on our way down the hill. It had all the basic provisions like bottled water, cookies, etc. at a fraction of the cost of the beach stores.

The Food:
When in Rome...the dish of the region was chicken piri piri, which Ian enjoyed multiple times. At many places it was advertised for 5 Euros for the plate which offered a choice of fries or some or some other potatoes:

For the vegetarians in the party (heheh), options were a little more limited. However, virtually every place offered salads and omelets. I'm not a huge fan of omelets, but they did mushroom ones pretty well:

A lot of places did lunchtime specials. The vacationing Portuguese (and us) were smart enough to get out of the sun from 1130-14.00. The sun was really strong still in September and temps were high 20's. The Brits stayed on the beach and fried to a pink crisp.

The result was that most restaurants offered great lunchtime offers to get people in. Often our best meal of the day would be lunch.

Along the way I noticed that everyone was using those floaty things not for paddling around in the water, but for sleeping on the beach:

And there were plenty of places selling them, plus umbrellas, hats, sunblock, etc. all at exorbitant beach prices:

One day, the clouds came overhead ominously and it began to spit rain. There was an exodus from the beach as everyone headed back to their hotels. On the way, beachgoers who were obviously on their way out that night or tomorrow morning started depositing their floating things, umbrellas, etc. next to the trash bins on the beach.

Ian was fully embarassed by me picking up two rafts which looked like new, as well as an umbrella. He wasn't so embarassed however, not to use the raft the next day for his ancient back, once i rinsed it off in the ocean. Talk about a consumer society...the items looked new, like they would bought in the past day or two. So we got a good couple of days out of the two rafts and umbrella, and then donated them on our way out to the charity shop for pets who were selling all sorts of that stuff and who gladly accepted them.

Heather's thought for the future-->check the local charity shops in advance for beach things and general souvenir stuff, if there is one relatively close to our location. Portugal is known for cork, so had I wanted to pick up any of those little gifts for anyone like cork coasters or Portugal spoons or plates, the charity shop was oozing with that stuff, for a fraction of the cost of the main shops.

One thing we did enjoy...coffee in Portugal reminds me of coffee in Spain--it's strong and it's cheap. We ferreted out a place near the beach, but off of the beaten path, which seems to be frequented by locals. I sent Ian in, but the woman only spoke Portuguese (score!). I went in and spoke Spanish with her (I was a little hesitant to do this, my Spanish colleagues have given me quite an education about the historical role of Spain in Portugal's history), however, it seemed better than English in this case.

I was able to get my strong expresso and Ian's frilly Latte at a lower price than any of the cafes where the menu was in English:

Could we have done it cheaper?

Well sure. We could have done couchsurfing to save the hotel costs (Ian not so fond of that idea and had already vetoed camping). Or we could have stayed at a closer beach to Faro (Heather not fond of that idea since we were there for five nights, maybe if it was only a weekend.) Or we could have gone with a self-cathering flat and done lunch at home. We had asked the shuttle driver how business had been, she said the numbers have been down, and those that were coming were saving pennies. She noticed a big increase to trips to self-catering flats in the past year over previous years to full-service hotels. In addition, she mentioned that people who own properties there and usually rent them out were coming to use them for personal use--a cheap holiday for the owner while the place was unrented.

Would I do Portugal again?

Yes, definitely. The little we saw of it I liked. However, seeing the dry landscape in September, I'd be careful to avoid the summer months. In addition, my work colleague went during August and told me how the beaches were packed, so September was really the way to go, even though the sun was setting behind the mountains as of 18.30 each day.