Quinta Penha de Franca

"Great views and so close to the sea(stayed at Mar site), the room was big with a lovely balcony. Pool was lovely with very attentive pool staff. Breakfast was great with fresh cooked omelettes and you can sit outside by the sea! Stay were friendly. It must be the best value hotel in the area and certainly the rooms closest to the sea that we had. Only stayed two nights to check it out but will be back!"

"We booked through EasyJet holidays and stayed in a superior twin with balcony on a B&B basis. We stayed in the Quinta da Penha de França hotel, although we also made use of the neighbouring Penha de França Mar hotel. The hotel is charmingly old fashioned, and has a lot more character than the more modern hotels. It has attractive buildings and lovely shady gardens. Our room was large and the balcony had a view of the sea through the trees. The staff were very welcoming and polite about my feeble attempts to speak a few words of Portuguese. There were a wide range of options for breakfast, and we enjoyed sitting outside each morning, watching the visiting hawk, who is brought in to keep the pigeons away. Get there early if you want one of the tiny natas. They are divine. We stayed in May and found both swimming pools to be pretty cold. The one at the Quinta is unheated and was a bracing 18C. The one at França Mar was a little more bearable at 20C. We loved the ridiculous fruity constructions in our cocktails in Joe’s bar and enjoyed a very amateurish game of snooker in the strange-smelling billiards bar (I think it’s a mixture of tobacco smoke and taxidermy!) One evening, we ate at the Rivus restaurant, sitting outside, looking out to sea. Service was slow initially but, once we’d encouraged them to take our drinks order, everything flowed very well after that. We had the local scabbard fish, which was absolutely delicious, with a bottle of house white, which was perfectly ok. I would 100% stay here again."

"The hotel is well run with excellent friendly knowledgeable staff throughout. The grounds are beautiful and well kept and the standard of cleaning in the rooms is excellent. Highly recommended"