A Few Days in Portugal's Albufeira

I soon established there wasn’t a lot in Albufeira, so wondered what there was for a boy to do. Considering the train station is about 5 miles out of town, and local busses appeared a little scarce, it seemed like too much hassle to hightail it out of there for the day. I soon concluded a little time spent chilling in one of the towns many bars was the only way to go: when in Rome and all that…

We focussed upon the strip on "old town" as the couple of mid-20-year-olds in our party said the "new strip" was far too brash and exciting for them. Considering they both work for a bank, perhaps I should have looked for myself. However, I decided that as long as the place had chairs and sold alcohol then I wouldn’t be too fussy.

As I keep on typing "strip", the name for the bars and restaurants in Albufeira, the more I dislike the term. It signifies exposing yourself bare, and to be honest, we found it a good place to people watch, and discovered many of the visitors pretty stripped bare.

I soon felt skinny, as it seems Albufeira attracts particularly fat visitors. I suppose as the town caters for the stomach more than anything else, then it is a logical outcome. You rarely see skinny customers in the queue for Kentucky Fried Chicken after all.

Likewise, I also felt a little stylish, as umpteen men strolled by in sandals, with grey or black work socks pulled up as far as humanly possible. As Albufeira is a golf town, it also didn’t take long for me to spot the lemon pullover, draped unattractively across shoulders, with the sleeves forming a loose "V" across extended stomachs. By contrast, I was quite the bobby dazzler in my lime and orange swimming shorts and white Che Guevara T-shirt!

As we were going native, we wandered across to the tackiest part of the strip, a long series of sports bars and restaurants, all showing the same UK soccer match on the same outdoor TV. At one point, I must have got the impact and point of quadraphonic as speakers up and down the street blasted out the same broadcast. In the whole line, only about two of the places catered for the German tourist; it was almost like a lone dissenting voice.

While Portugal produces some reasonable lager, and some beautiful wines, these British bars served the familiar to people who obviously wanted to simply visit Britain in the sun. So, most of these places offered Fosters (which is Australian in any case) and John Smith’s bitter (a brew most bitter drinkers won’t easily touch). Food of course, was of the greasy and gut expanding kind: everything with chips, apart from the traditional British Sunday Roast. From this little part of town, you would hardly ever know that Albufeira was a fishing town, or that it was in Portugal.

Fortunately, the Albufeira strip wasn’t all like this, and away from that particular street, things were much more diverse. We passed by more traditional looking restaurants selling some of the Portuguese specialities like grilled sardines and cod in sauce.

We stopped for a drink at Sir Harry’s British bar, which sold the local lager, and the inside was spick and span. I had opportunity to snigger and sneer at the local sign in the bathrooms, ignoring that my Portuguese is limited to "thank you". Alongside us, a group of about 20 British lads on a stag weekend were good-natured and lazily enjoying the sun and each other’s company.

As the birthday girl in our party was from the Northeast of England, we also went to Suspenders Geordie Bar. This is a pub run by Newcastle people for Newcastle people. As such, I found it sadly depressing, that people actually thought this was a good idea (we only went in for a joke!). We ignored the other Geordie bar two doors up (and not because the owner of Suspenders sneeringly told us an Icelandic man ran it).

We then tried a couple of bars, which sold cocktails. After the Geordie bar experience, I needed them for my sanity.

While I’m not a cocktail kind of boy, I do have a weakness for a minty Mojito. I have to say the Portuguese versions aren’t particularly wonderful, and at 6.50 Euros a glass, not particularly cheap. However, they are strong and refreshing, so they slipped down nicely.

In the first bar, a nicely furnished mock Moorish palace, we were ashamed to see a group of British men behaving very badly; being rude to the bar staff and so drunk they couldn’t finish off their £50 bottle of champagne. At the second bar, a more basic rock café, we hummed along to Robbie Williams on the screen, and slipped slowly into oblivion.

While wandering along the strip isn’t really my kind of thing these days, I did discover it had more variation than I first thought, and that in general there was a relaxed and mixed attitude. Just ignore the obviously British places.

I must confess I wasn’t totally looking forward to our short stay in Albufeira in the Algarve. A good friend had very kindly invited us along to her 50th birthday celebrations, and while we so wanted to celebrate with her, we knew we looked for very different experiences from a vacation.

I anticipate exciting and different travel experiences, and the opportunity to write a good travel review. Our friend meanwhile is much more about having a leisurely doze on the sun bed around a pool, in between short bursts of Barbara Taylor Bradford and a gulp of rapidly warming wasp infested sweet Sangria.

In the end, we decided to get the best of both worlds with a few days in Porto and then Caiscais (near Lisbon), before we braved the Algarve. Unfortunately, these first two places were so lovely; I held a heavy heart by the time it came time to meet up. The Algarve is an area deeply loved, and on the agenda of, many a traditional holidaymaker since the mid 60’s. I was fully expecting gangs of young British yobs and yobetts, interspersed with the more mature Brit looking for some idyllic sunnier vision of what they imagined Britain to be like 40 years ago.

It is true, in part, that I discovered my personal nemesis. The main concentration of bars in Albufeira (tellingly and horrifyingly named "the strip") had its full share of soccer football TV screens, cheap beer offers, and roast Sunday dinners and fish and chips on the menu. The largest pile of British newspapers in the local supermarket was for the Daily Mail (disparagingly known as the "Hate Mail" by British liberals).

However, before I cast the whole place into room 101, I didn’t find Albufeira to be as bad as the hell-on-sea that my mind envisaged. We enjoyed visiting some of the cocktail bars, and some of the restaurants were surprisingly upmarket and good (as my journal tells testament).

I also found that scant parts of the old original town had survived, with old winding streets lined with little whitewashed fisher family cottages. I even spotted right in the centre of the old town "strip", an old farmer sitting in his living room with his front door open, as he must have done 60 years ago. Of course in those days, instead of ritzy bars and tatty kid’s toys shops, fields surrounded him.

I was also surprised that Albufeira wasn’t quite as built up as I had imagined; none of the town is high-rise apartments, although I did spot some white wedding cake tier designed flats on some of the hills. Most apartments and villas were in fairly small groups or even separate plots, and I has to walk between the odd field to hop from bar to bar. The beach area itself is simply a series of very sandy bays, interspersed with rocky cliff headland. Again, this lent to the town giving itself breathing space.

Unfortunately, Albufeira has had a couple of rocky years, as its reputation seems to precede it, and tourists have been moving on in search of resorts that are more sophisticated. The local newspaper was over optimistically shouting of hints of revival as the local hotels claimed towards 50% room occupancy for May.

Albufeira has its fair share of bankrupt and closed down bars and restaurants, and the ones that survive have to be good to keep going. This is particularly true of the edge of town, where "passing trade" is much less. I passed the "Cock and Bull" a sadly peeling "English" bar, proudly proclaiming they were showing all the matches for "Euro 2006". I’m sure the soccer teams playing in the tournament weren’t the only ones with shattered dreams and battered egos. It made me sad, and made me want to like the place.

The real problem I have with Albufeira was that there seemed so little to do. A stall was offering Segways for hire. We were tempted until we realised that all we could do was go round in mindless little circles in the concrete square at the back of the beach. I didn’t really see any serious art shops or museums to explore. I just saw cheap and expensive bars, cheap and expensive restaurants, and the piles pounding on as I staggered and wobbled between the two, and watched others doing likewise.

For our friend’s 50th celebrations, we chose a rather grand restaurant set in a large white villa on the outskirts of Albufeira. The restaurant could be spotted through the mock oversized plates and cups outside, perhaps 20 minutes walk from the centre of town.

Of course, from this distance from town, the restaurant has to add a little something extra rather than rely on passing trade, and the Jompra Restaurant did not disappoint. In particular, they really helped us celebrate the occasion with a special sweet for the birthday girl, and a gratis glass of port for the party at the end of the meal. Overall, we found the service to be very attentive, friendly and involved.

As the meal was going to be a long affair, we decided to play it safe and cheap with bottles of the house red and white wine. This is a perfectly safe choice given the general excellent standard of Portuguese wine, and quite reasonable at 9.50 Euros a bottle.

One particularly nice touch with this restaurant is the space between tables; while the place was busy, they could have fitted in a table or two more, and lost something of the elegant atmosphere at the expense of a little more profit. We were very lucky to find a large table for 10 available, which meant that our party could dine together.

In the traditional Portuguese way, they offered us nibbles to start. Unusually, we found that we were served a little home made Tapas, rather than the common bread and fish pate paste, pretty common throughout the country. I particularly enjoyed the tuna pate, olives, and little cubes of sheeps cheese, although the bowl of cooked carrots went rather unnoticed.

For my starter, I was keen to try a bowl of traditional Portuguese fish soup, at around 4 Euros. While I liked the soup, I imagine it was a little too crisp to be authentic, and it might have been a little nicer as a rustic meal. However, my soup was presented very nicely, and the linen napkins appreciated.

For my main course, I chose the fish of the day. I usually find that food in Portugal is best served simple, as they use good and fresh ingredients. I wasn’t to be disappointed, as my two nicely prepared fish fillets were very fresh and tasty. My meal arrived with Broccoli, carrots and potatoes, and I was also pleased to find the vegetables were crisply cooked, rather than stewed to within an inch of its life, which seems to be the preferred Portuguese way. My beloved’s steak also looked reasonable quality, and went down well. The dining companion to my other side hit the jackpot with a lovely dish of king prawns cooked in an orange pri pri sauce. This seemed the star dish of the evening.

Unfortunately, I should have probably quit at that point. However, as some of our party were having sweets, I thought I could cope with a little of the Toblorone chocolate mousse. Unfortunately, while it was light and fluffy, it was rather too sweet for my taste. My "keep it simple in Portugal" rule would have been better served with a simple ice cream or some fresh fruit.

As the restaurant is a little out of town, we were pleased to discover that there is a lively bar on the ground floor to the rear of the restaurant. This has a younger but still mid-market atmosphere, and we oldies didn’t feel particularly out of place having an after dinner beer before wandering back to our holiday villa.

Our complete "blow out" meal came to 31 Euros a head, which I felt was a very reasonable price to pay – I can highly recommend the Jompra for that special meal of any trip to Albufeira.

During our recent trip to Albufeira, I was surprised with the choice of reasonable looking restaurants in the town. Rather than take pot luck in the main strips (although to be fair most of these looked clean and tidy), we chose to eat in a few slightly out of the way places, in the hope that the restaurant would have to make a bit more of an effort.

A good choice for us was the friendly Lemon Tree restaurant on the cliffs between a couple of beach bay areas. The Lemon Tree can be found on Av Sac Cabral, just a little way up past the escalators, which transport the elderly and lazy from the beach up to the top of the cliff.

The Lemon Tree seems to be more of a light lunch café kind of a place, rather than for a formal full meal, but we found there was a good choice of meals, cakes and drinks on the menu. We opted for a couple of salads (Greek and seafood) at around the 5 Euros price mark, and as we were waiting for some friends to arrive in town, decided upon a bottle of local fruity white wine for 10 Euros.

Although the outside area is tiny (there is just a pavement, the minor road and the cliff face), the Lemon tree manages to pop three or four small tables outside in the sun. While the inside of the restaurant is clean, bright and airy, we took advantage of the early spring rays to top up on our Vitamin D supplies. In fact, I over topped up on the sun, and didn’t realise I was burning in the light breeze until it was too late, so be warned.

Our food arrived in good time, and the wait staff even made the effort to find out whether I wanted my seafood lightly warmed through and added to the salad, rather than just give me potluck.

Our salads arrived in a little dry pastry basket, which meant we had a little added carbohydrate to bolter the salad calories. In tradition with usual Portuguese dining, they had pre added a little salad dressing to the salad. As my food was seafood, this turned out to be a little too far into Marie-Rose territory, but there wasn’t too much for my taste buds to cope with. The server also provided some fine virgin olive oil and white wine vinegar for us to use. However, if you ask for your salad to be served naked, then I’m sure the server will oblige. Heh, actually you will probably need to go further into the strip if you want to dine in that kind of place!

Although, we were perhaps taking up a good customer spot out on one of the coveted terrace tables, the staff didn’t seem concerned that we were lingering over our meal. To keep the genialities going, my beloved ordered a slice of their fresh homemade apple pie slices with a cup of coffee. This was a steal at 2.50 Euros, and although I found the apple a little sweet, appreciated the spicy cinnamon inside.

In total, our leisurely lunch for two came to around 20 euros, although it would have been a lot cheaper had we been a little lighter on the wine order, which chalked up half the cost.

Despite Portugal’s Albufeira having something of a downmarket "roast beef" and "burger and chips" image, there is actually no shortage of quality restaurants to frequent. As we were in the town to celebrate the 50th birthday of a friend, we had plenty of opportunity to wander the streets and take up a table at some of these reasonably priced places.

On our last evening in the town, we decided to try the Tasca Do Diegas, a fairly little terrace restaurant facing over one of Albufeira’s many little beach bays.

As we had eaten our fill of the wonderfully fresh local sea life over the previous couple of days, we decided to give the food supplies in the oceans a little pause for breath. As Portugal doesn’t have a huge vegetarian tradition, this meant we focussed our concentration on munching our way through some four legged land animals.

During this trip, we fell into the habit of forsaking the starters on offer, as most Portuguese restaurants offer unasked for but chargeable little nibbles, to help the digestion (and the final bill) on its way. The Tasca Do Diegas was very rare in that the friendly young waiter gave us an option to refuse this pre-starter, actually on this occasion, a bowlful of the nice crusty local bread, and pre-packed tubs of butter and sardine pate. While I could hardly describe the starter as lovingly hand made by the restaurant, the pate was of reasonable quality, and kept the party quiet while we waited for our main course.

We particularly enjoyed the light in the restaurant; as it was early evening, the sun streamed through the two sides of glass, and we enjoyed the view over the beach. The bright blue wall, and pleasant table setting promised much.

For drinks, I selected a bottle of Portuguese white, which I had drunk previously, a very dry and delectable bottle on offer for 11 Euros. The recipients, a very lively and irrepressible lesbian couple, loved the name of my choice, BSE, and made much of the inference of the name (in the UK, the initials BSE are closely linked to the term "mad cow disease"). For the remaining three in our party, I chose a very drinkable (and once again, fruity Portuguese wine) which came in at 12 Euros. The house wine was around 10 Euros, and I’m sure would have been very acceptable – however I am something of a Portuguese wine snob, so the extra cost of a couple of Euros was a necessary expense!

I had chosen a mixed meat kebab for my main course, and received a very solid and long skewer of different meats, cooked perfectly, so each piece was still a little tender and juicy, but with a nice charcoal edge. My meal was served with French Fries, rice and a little salad.

The meat considered of chunks of pork, lamb, gammon and beef and was a good deal at around 12 Euros. My beloved chose a little less well, as she had asked for a rare rump steak. While her meat was as fresh and as well selected as mine was, unfortunately the meat came in four very thin steaks, making the "rare" nigh on impossible for the chef to achieve. The other dish chosen by people in our party was the standard steak; once again this was a nice cut of meat, and well presented and cooked.

While we had ordered just one course, we left the restaurant feeling stuffed to the gills, and happy with the quality and presentation of our choices. At a touch under 20 Euros a head, we were very satisfied with our choice.