In April if you follow me on my social media accounts, you would have seen stories and images about my holiday to Carvoeiro Portugal.

Portugal is a country within Europe to the west of Spain which took approximately 3 hours to fly there. So wasn’t too far and was a nice easy flight with Easyjet.

Travelling to Europe is quite a simple journey from the UK. Destinations in the South of Spain and trips to Budapest take just a matter of hours making them very desirable destinations for holiday makers.

Holiday To Carvoeiro Portugal

I took just hand luggage with me to save on the cost of the flight. To put a suitcase in the hold was really expensive in my opinion.

I flew into Faro airport, Faro being the capital of the Algarve and then got a taxi to the resort.

I stayed in a lovely, fully furnished, self-catering apartment in Monte Carvoeiro.

A 4-star resort set about a 15 minute walk to Carvoeiro beach which was perfect, you can see the apartment on my Youtube 

The resort as you would expect being a hot climate had its own swimming pools. One was a shallow-depth pool, perfect for younger children, not that there were many in our resort despite being the Easter holidays.

Dining out in Carvoeiro Portugal

The town which was at the foot of the beach was full of restaurants, bars and eateries

Just what I needed, as even though I was in a self-catering apartment I had no intentions of cooking

Being a coastal town fish dishes were specialities on most menus, Seabream and Seabass featured heavily

As well as King Prawns much to my delight

Oh and plenty of Gelato shops! The Gelato in Portugal was incredible the concoction of flavours they sold was heavenly.

Who would ever think about making Rice Pudding Gelato?

And who would ever think rice in Gelato would taste so nice?

A Gelato a day keeps the doctor away.

Wine in Portugal

Portugal is well known for producing fine red wine and being a red wine fan I indulged in the odd glass or two I was there. I agree the wine is delicious.

Typically young grapes, are fruity and very palatable. Exactly what you would expect from hot climate wines, and it tasted even better locally.

The wine was also typically one of the cheapest drinks on the menu, in some places, it was more expensive to buy a glass of coke or lemonade than it was a glass of wine. This is because of the import tax they pay which is then passed on to the customers.

Carvoeiro Portugal Beach

The beach was set in between 2 mountains, with my resort being at the top of 1 of them.

When I say mountains I’m not talking about Mount Everest. They were easily walked up and down and had stairs which were quite easy to power through on the climb back up. They weren’t so easy after a few glasses of wine though.

But taxis are readily available in the town and along the beachfront to assist.

The beach is beautifully pale with very fine sand which made for stunning views. There were an enormous amount of shells and pieces of shells in waves across the sand.

Being set in between the mountains the sea made a cove, and a lot of the shells which would have smashed up against the cliffs washed up on the sand and collected at tidal times.

Day Trips in Portugal

There wasn’t a huge amount of local attractions to visit while on holiday in Carvoerio town, Portugal

They mainly consisted of the beautiful beaches, the Lighthouse and the Boardwalk which could all be done in 1 day

Plenty of Golf courses though, and there are lots of golf courses and golf shops advertised.

Lisbon is the capital city, this is where most of the site seeing trips took place.

There were companies that put on shuttles to take people to and from the attractions, which was at a cost.

You would be picked up and taken to the attraction at a specific time and then dropped back at your resort after.

However, even though I was there at the end of April it was still classed as out-of-season, which meant that there weren’t enough people wanting to go on the trips for them to warrant running the shuttle service.

Portugal is beautiful and I would definitely be interested in going there again in the future. The weather was nice and hot which is exactly the type of holiday weather I like.

There were beautiful natural and man-made views everywhere it is all very pretty.

Scenary in Portugal

Also being on the South coast sun rise and sun set something of sheer radiance.

A bit of advice to anyone planning to take a trip who hasn’t visited before, the cost of dining out isn’t particularly cheap in comparison to some other European countries, expect to pay more Euros than you would in say Spain for example.

Also, if you have the option to book a shuttle or transfer to or from your resort via your resort, try and do that rather than getting a taxi from the airport.

I paid nearly double the transfer cost via a metered taxi.

If you are keen to travel but budgeting and saving are your downfalls, Sam has some great tips on how to save or your family holidays

Another place ticked off my bucket list and my holiday to Carvoeiro, Portugal was spectacular. I have been looking at what to do in Dubai for another holiday.

If you are interested in travelling to Spain, maybe check out the Costa Encantada

I also took a weekend break to Bruge that you can read about if you enjoy visiting European cities.

You can pin this image to refer to this post again later