This past week, Uns and I were out in Albufeira, Portugal for a nice relaxing beach and sun holiday. We'd decided to try get an 'end of summer' trip in and were able to get accommodation at Hotel Vila São Vicente - the same place we had stayed at last year. With it having a 'no children' policy, we figured we'd stay there this year, since the next few years will be very different holidays for us :) We landed up being really lucky with the weather, with the week's temperatures close to 30°C on most days, which is quite a bit higher than usual for this time of the year, so timed the trip well then :)

On Monday morning we were up around 5am to get our taxi out to Gatwick, then the flight to Faro Airport and finally another taxi down to Albufeira. We arrived at the hotel around midday, a bit too early for check in, so decided to drop our bags and grab some lunch at O Penedo restaurant. After checking in, we had ourselves a bit of pool time and then down to the beach for a few hours before dinner at Cabana Fresca, followed by some music and drinks at Beer Corner.

The rest of the week was basically a repeat of: breakfast in the morning next to the pool, then a few hours in the sun and in the pool by the hotel, some lunch, the afternoon down on the beach, all followed by dinner and drinks in the evening. Definitely a routine I was able to get used to :)

For our lunches, we alternated between O Penedo, Ricardo's Pizzaria, Mi Sombrero and Hotel Sol e Mar Downtown restaurant. We stopped in at a few bars in the evening too, like the Blue Bell Bar, Portas Da Villa Bar (the Shell Bar), Bar 7½ as well as Merlin's Bar. For dinners, it was a mix of Cabana Fresca, Mi Sombrero and Casa Del Mar, except on Thursday night we had booked into Dom Carlos restaurant which we'd seen on TripAdvisor and tried to go last year but was closed over the days we could make it. At least this year we managed to get there and had such a nice evening, with a full 5 course fine dining dinner and exceptionally good personal table service too, by owners and chef Peter and Ana. We did say we'd definitely be back the next time we'd be out in Albufeira, until we heard they were closing down the restaurant at the end of the season and opening up a B&B instead, so might have to give that a try instead :)

Another activity I'd wanted to try in previous years but didn't manage was parasailing, so yesterday I booked it in and gave it a go and thoroughly enjoyed it, even if I did crap myself panic a bit at first with the heights :) I took my camera with and managed to get a few shots and a couple of videos too...

Click to play video

Since today was our last day out there, we still managed a bit of pool and sun time before our taxi at midday to Faro, getting home around 8pm this evening, after a lovely week away :)