Martinhal Sagres Family Resort

You keep thinking there’s no way the Algarve coast can keep dazzling, but it just keeps going, beach after unspoiled beach, eating up a whopping two hundred kilometers of southern Portugal. That’s plenty of space for every kind of hotel to host the millions of sun-seekers that descend upon the beaches during the summer. It makes perfect sense, then, for a place like Martinhal Beach Resort and Hotel to contain multitudes; an ambitious offering of varied guest-room styles with the facilities and amenities of a massive luxury resort, and a place particularly well-suited to families traveling with young children.

In fact there are so many diversions for kids, it almost feels like the resort was designed by some hotelier Willy Wonka, retired from chocolatiering and let loose on the Algarve coast. All four pools (plus dedicated toddler areas) welcome pint-sized swimmers, with beanbags by the poolside when it’s time to get out of the water; there are a number of kid-friendly sports facilities, including an irresistible trampoline; and play areas beckon after meal-times, near all three restaurants. The staff, too, takes special care of families, including gift bags for the littlest travelers on arrival. If you want a romantic all-grown-up holiday, this may not be the place — but if it’s a hotel that cares as much about its youngest guests as about the ones paying the bills, it’s clearly an enticing option.

It may seem strange for a 238-room resort to tout the way it blends into the landscape, but at Martinhal there’s no massive, imposing building. Instead, the rooms are divided between a boutique hotel and a number of external options such as the Village, which offers secluded, fully equipped houses in different locations around the resort — if beachfront style isn’t your thing, there’s always the pine woods. For a seriously upscale private holiday, the resort offers twenty-three luxury townhouses with views across the Sagres Peninsula and adjacent national park. Interiors are fairly diverse (with this many options, stylistic variance comes with the territory), maintain a certain adherence to modern elegance throughout.

How to get there:
Martinhal Beach is approximately 90 minutes from Faro, by car.