We’re happily settled in now on the tiny island of Porto Santo. I am not going to pretend we are enjoying Greek levels of temperature, but today’s predicted maximum of 22c – yes, that’s really all! – will do just fine.
Our room, situated in the same block as the hotel reception, next to the lounges and restaurants and about 30 yards from the pool, is wonderful and has some novel features, including a set of blinds between the bedroom/living room which would, if you so chose, enable you to observe your partner, or whoever, enjoying the facilities a bathroom can offer. For fear of requiring urgent orthodontistry, and because I still have some small sense of decency, I have declined the opportunity.
We finally got to leave the complex on our fourth full day here, taking the number seven bus to Villa Baleira. To be honest, there’s not much to it, apart from some shops, including very helpfully, a toy shop and, depressingly, quite a lot of boarded up premises. The highlight was a trip to the end of the pier – and I am not being sarcastic here: the views were terrific – and a pint in the nearest bar to the bus stop, five Euros each for the same stuff that comes in unlimited quantity at the resort.
The bus journey is very short and unremarkable. The outward bound trip was free on the hotel courtesy bus, the return cost a Euro each on what had previously been the hotel courtesy bus, with the same driver. Within two hours, we were back at the complex, grilling gently under the Atlantic sun.
The resort itself is inhabited mainly by Portuguese folk – around 80% would be my guesstimate – and the rest are either middle aged Brits, young British couples with toddlers and babies and at least two German people. The latter was easy to work out once they started goose-stepping alongside the pool, although I may have made that up. In truth, the feeling is laid back, on the simple grounds that there is nothing to rush for. There is plenty of decent food to go round, no one puts towels out first thing in the morning to secure a sun bed and above all we are on our holidays.
I have certainly warmed to my partner’s view that we should try to visit different places, instead of ploughing the exact same furrow, in our case to Corfu, every single year. An open mind is required to make the change, something I admit I am not always in possession of. But it has worked, with recent trips to mainland Portugal, Paxos off Corfu, Formentera, Brac Island off Split and now Porto Santo. Every single one has been a winner and that’s no lie.
We are going on at least one trip, maybe two. The Grand Island Tour, a name I have just made up, should take about 45 minutes if my map of the island is anything to go by and the Island History and Culture trip which, as a student of neither, fills me with an element of dread. I had intended to do some plane-spotting, as I have done in Corfu many times, but there are so few flights to the island – five today and they are all internal – I have reluctantly concluded it would be a waste of the time I could otherwise be spending lying on a sun bed.
Anyway, I must go. The rain has finally stopped and I am now trying to summon the levels of energy to head off the 30 yards to my sun bed, or cloud bed, as it should be called at the moment. Sunshine’s better, right?
