Hotel Roca Mar

Being so close to the sea you could hear the waves from the hotel room with the patio door open, which is a lovely relaxing sound.

There were few children but those often hogged the pool and as it’s small this didn’t leave room for many people to swim.

The hotel has an environmental policy so like-minded guests can keep their towels during their stay – the only issue is knowing whose towel each one is as the cleaners fold them neatly (an identifier would help).

Often restaurants and cafes use kebab-shop style pictures of the dishes in their plates on the menus and signs outside – not very enticing.

Not very lively: Rocky Bar closes at 6PM, food at the main bar stopped by 10PM, few people at the bar.

We also really enjoyed the generous breakfast each day with fresh fruit, cooked breakfast, a good choice of bread and pastries and a daily fresh Madeira cake.

The only exception is the Rocky Bar (one of the Hotel’s two bars) which did not manage to cope with orders despite the hotel not being only half full, the attendant wasn’t friendly and the bar closes at 6PM despite the sun being out till 8PM.

Little to do in the area, no real town centre, no real restaurant, so this type of holiday is best to just rest.

The hotel provided excellent service, especially the front desk staff who could speak many languages and were very helpful with planning activities.

It provides excellent quality food and several vegetarian options in a top quality historical building with very professional service.

The service is sufficiently frequent (not quite every hour) and there is a late return so you can spend the evening out.

Many of the other hotels do not have a pool, their sunbathing areas are not as nice and varied and they don’t have as many access points (ladders) into the sea.

For us the pool, despite being sea water, was one of the best features of the hotel.

We can also recommend the Taj Mahal (UK style Indian) which has a nice roof terrace and is modern.

The room was nice, spacious, clean and practical.