A FREE night out in the Holiday Inn Algarve

We have set up a small informal group of Instagrammers (entitled #algarvesquad) who live in the Algarve and the Holiday Inn Algarve invited us over for a free night. Naturally the deal was to produce some evidence of our night and here it is. By the way, the Holiday Inn was super happy with the outcome and so were we! High 5’s all round.

Arriving in Armação de Pêra

It was a Tuesday afternoon in April and the sun was blessing us with a shiny hot day. Little did we know the weather was going to turn ugly (for us) for a sheer month after that. Checking in was a breeze and we headed straight out to Albandeira Beach (as mentioned in our Top 5 Beaches post). To be honest, Albandeira is a bit of a pain to get to, but it’s worth the shlep. If you’re loaded and want to stay right on this incredible beach, head for the Alba Suites Hotel, apparently partly owned by football legend Luis Figo.

Stand up paddle and sundowners

As we pumped up the boards, primed the drone and readied our cameras the newly formed #algarvesquad headed out for a quick paddle and a longer photoshoot, harvesting content for our various social media channels. It really was fun getting to meet like-minded people as we all captured our best shots and rolled some video.

Heading back to Armação we strolled along the sun drenched beach while George handled his Phantom 4 drone in an impressive manner, whipping it around the sunset like a military drone. Tons of practice must have gone into those moves, good one George! We headed on for a sundowner in the Holiday Inn’s very own beach bar, which is just that… embedded right in the sand. It was time to reflect and relax as it’s pretty manic trying to get all the right shots when everyone is rushing about and the sun is dropping like a stone towards a dusky end of day.

I have always thought that Armação de Pêra is a perfect launchpad to explore the 15km stretch of coastline which stretches westwards towards Ferragudo. It’s not the most incredibly beautiful city with a skyline reminiscent of an 80’s tourism boom, but there certainly is some charm to the ocean hugging city. Enjoy a summer walk along the promenade and grab a beer or cocktail at sunset and you’ll see how impressive it is.

Huge thanks to the Holiday Inn for hosting us and to the #algarvesquad crew for joining: @georgehobsonlife @alexanderhf47 and naturally @algarveaddicts of course!