Travel Features

My Albufeira Experience

By Jade Clayton


Forte de Oura Aparthotels - Where we stayed.

This is how I spent my 1 week in Albufeira. In July 2011 Myself and a group of my friends (girl group late teens early 20s) decided to take our summer holiday in Portugal. We went to Albuferia which is in the Algarve region of Portugal for a week. A couple of us had been before so we sort of knew what to expect.

Day 1: 4:00am start and final checks before heading to Manchester airport. Months of saving and waiting in excitement has finally paid off. 9 girls checked in and off to browse the duty free collection which has never looked as great, making me want to spend all my money before I've even boarded the plane.

After the 3 hours flight, we arrived in Albufeira, in the Algarve region of Portugal at around 10am, checked into our new “home” for the week at Forte de Oura aparthotel near the Albufeira strip. Successfully checked in we headed to our rooms which I shared with two of my friends, we all arranged to unpack and head straight to the pool. After 7 long hours of relaxing, we went off to get ready and go out for food and drinks.


The best steak dinner I've ever had.

Day 2: Up bright and early after the first night. For our first night we have food in a steakhouse on the corner of the “strip” and it was amazing classic steak, chips and salad. We then had a few drinks and went back to the hotel for an early night because we were all worn out. The plan for the day was to wonder round the souvenir shops to see what we could find and spend some money, at about 6pm we went back and got ready for the first proper night out. After several hours of getting ready all 9 of us got together in one room for pre drinks before heading out, we were all so excited ready to go. As we got closer to the strip we could hear the music pumping and we could see the flashing neon lights from just down the road, to save the arguments and confusion we decided to start from the bars at top of the strip then work our way down to the bottom.

The first bar we went in was Café de Mar, the music was great and the cocktails were huge, it really felt like summer. We also met a lot of nice people whose first night it was also. As the night went on we met more and more groups and had more and more cocktails. About ¾ of the way down we decided to call it a night as we all had a little too much and decided to go to this Portuguese kebab shop, which also did the best chicken wraps ever.


The Strip - The focus of nightlife in Albufeira.

Day 3: “Bright and early” not so much. After our first proper night out we all woke up around mid day if not a little later. Once we all managed to get up and ready we decided to spend the day at Praia de Oura Beach which was about 5mins from out hotel. When we got to the beach it was buzzing with people. The sand was hot and the water was cool and we even went on the jet skis and pedalos which I would recommend to anyone. Jet skis were €40 per jet which can fit 2 people for 15mins – which was longer than it seemed and the pedalos were €15 for an hour fitting up to 4 people.

On our way back from the beach we decided to take the long way round up the strip and ended up signing up to a bar crawl for the next night which was €10 each with 1 complimentary shot and drink in each bar.

Day 4: Bar crawl night! Earlier on in the week we came across a shop that sells and customizes t-shirts, so we decided for the bar crawl we would each get one. So we went back to the shop and chose what t-shirt design we wanted x9. We went for something simple (I love Portugal). We had to wait until 6pm for them to be ready so we went back to hang around the pool all day. When we went back to collect our t-shirts we had a look at them first and found that something was spelt incorrectly on the back of one of the t-shirts. The bar crawl was due to start in less than 2 hours so we were all in a rush trying to decide what to do. Fortunately, the woman managed to make us another one quickly. We were all ready for 7:30pm and headed to Reno's Bar on the strip which was where we were all meeting. When we got there, lots and lots of people had already arrived, the whole group ended up at around 200 people. Of course we did get our complimentary shots and drinks.

There were also a handful of designated team leaders helping keep everyone together so when the whistle went that meant we had to move on to the next bar. After Reno's we went to La Bambas, Savannah's, Garage, Pacha and a few more places.


Albufeira Old Town.

Day 5: Woke up a little worse for wear and I would definitely say you get your €10 worth of drinks, the t-shirts were also a success, people were asking us could we get in pictures with them. For the last day we went to the old town which was about 15-20mins away we went via taxi although you can get a tour train which travels on the road around Albufeira that passes the old town. The old town was not what we expected it would be, it had 2 lovely beaches and was more modern and up to date than it sounded. The old town was set in like a square type style with lots of back streets, shops, bar, café and restaurants. We were all a little disappointed we didn't go sooner.

Day 6: Home time. The coach came to pick us up at 8am to take us to Faro airport to catch our plane home. We were all exhausted but sad to be leaving to go back to Manchester. After checking in we bought some last remaining gifts for people at home and before we knew it our flight was being called.

Overall, personally I think Albufeira has something for everyone including couples and families, I've seen lots of families with young and older children and there are plenty family orientated bars and restaurants too amongst other night and day activities. I've been to Albuferia over the last 3 years with both my friends and family and I would still go back again.


Praia de Oura beach.
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