"A Room with A View"
Review Submitted: July 29, 2009
Date of Stay: July 2009
We were looking for a classic holiday of the sun, a beach and relax. We've got them all and a few bottles of Porto wine to make it one of our best holidays. The Sao Martinho do Porto city itself is rather small, but surrounding cliffs kept us occupied with endless walks that lead to outstanding "a room with a view" spots, where one can admire the abyss of ocean and the sky.
The apartment was up to our expectations: clean, fully functional, with all brand new home appliance. Perfect for cooking at home. The swimming pool under the apartment balcony teases with a laguna colour and cooling water. Even at night.
The city info place offered many times valuable help and we managed to travel to other small cities by train, which we highly recommend. Keep your camera in constant stand-by!
Beside typical bars, restaurants and shops the city offered a ceramic exhibiton (one exhibit hangs in our home now), a local school concert and an outdoor gathering, which I think was private but friendly people allowed us to join anyway. Portuguese people seem to be fantastically friendly: at coffee shops, at the market, where you can practice either portuguese or simple hand language, both ways it works great.
We've spent countless hours at the coffee shop next to the food market. All walking distance. We saw small town portuguese morning rush, grandmothers with their dogs and men smoking their cigarettes and shouting with someone over a mobile phone. It smelled like life.
It's great place to be. Away from typical holiday resorts, packed with foreigners and lack of originality. There one can see and touch Portugal in such a way that makes one come back for more. Don't hasitate to be curious and poke politely your nose into every corner. You might find a beautifully shabby house, a serious-looking dog guarding its house with whom you become friends after all or a butcher talking to his wife thinking since you're in holiday, so you can wait till they finish. Well, it smelled like life.
Happy Sao Martinho do Porto life hunting!
Pros:
* Sao Martinho do Porto
* apartment
* market, people and coffee
* pool
* fish
Cons:
* the ocean was coldish
* sandy wind at the beach sometimes
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