Santa Lucia

Advantages: quiet fishing village
Disadvantages: ?

Santa Luzia is the fishing village in Portugal that we stayed in at Easter. We flew from Luton to Faro picked up our rental car and drove the 25 k to Santa Luzia. Santa Luzia is near Tavira. Santa Luzia is only about 30k from the Spanish border. Santa Luzia is a quiet fishing village on the Ria Formosa, separated from the long sandy beach by a shallow lagoon that opens out to the Atlantic Ocean. Fishing boats and a ferry use this as a harbour. ...
...supermarket on the way to Santa Luzia buying all the supplies for the week. We intended to eat out a few times too. We enjoyed our holiday using this quiet fishing village. We had a few nice meals out in the restaurants, watched the fishermen in their boats from our apartment balcony. We visited the town of Tavira and walked in the countryside. It is a place I might return to but there are so many other places to explore I doubt I ever will ... Read review

Advantages: heaven on earth
Disadvantages: none

I have been visiting Santa Luzia for more than 5 years now and enjoy the village so much that in august of 2006 i purchased a small house in rua Joao antonio chagas ferriera. It is opposite the best little seafood restaurant in the algarve "Alcatruz". The fish in this place is so fresh it is still wriggling and the algarvean speciality of seafood and rice "arroz marisco" is unsurpassed in even the swankiest of restaurants. The new promenade is ...
...out of season. In august santa luzia is very popular with potrtuguese tourists, expect a long wait at any restaurant unless pre-booked. Restaurant O mourao serves a 3 course lunch complete with wine and coffee for just7 euros. There are a couple of late night bars notably meia pippa which boasts live music most weekends and Mundo run by a lovley scottish couple emma and fergus. Ther is an excellent B&B casa da Ria run by Jorge and Tensi Hermann ... Read review

Advantages: Some lovely rooms, great location and verty reasonable price.
Disadvantages: Not all rooms as nice, noisy air-con.

...Plaza, meaning it is close to restaurants, bars, internet cafes and shops as well as the smaller, but pleasant Santa Lucia Plaza. The airport is just outside town, and takes about 15 minutes by taxi. The bus terminal is a five minute taxi ride away. We arrived late at night, so I didn’t really get the feel for the hotel until the morning, where it turned out to be a more attractive hotel than I realised. Most of the rooms assigned to my traveling companions overlooked a pretty little plant filled courtyard or the pool. My room overlooked a corridor! This, of course, hindered the natural light in the room as there was no other window other than a tiny one in the bathroom. The room was simply furnished with a tiled floor, solid beds (one single and one double) with wooden frames, a bedside table, desk, TV and some open shelves... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: helpful staff
Disadvantages: none

...my family and i love the santa lucia hotel in palms nova on the idealyc island of majorca. the hotle is a thomson only hotel so the only fight for the sunbeds is with the british. on our recent visit there we had a problem in the airport with my daughter not being allowed to sit in the comfort seats after the tour operators had taken the extra cost off us. we sought the advise of the reps at the hotel and it was sorted out within 24hours and we ad a full refund of the excess that we had paid. the reps had a good knowledge of the area and was always available to advise if required. the hotel is of an exceptionally high standard and has recently been refurbished. can't wait for my next visit there.... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average somewhat helpful

Advantages: Excellent family facilities, lovely, friendly staff
Disadvantages: Distance from the airport

...We returned from CSL on 4 September having spent 2 weeks there. We booked our holiday almost a year previously, so were really looking forward to it. We flew with Virgin, which was OK, but not as good a service as I expected. They use the same plane on this route all the time and the seat tv's are the old basic model, so entertainment is not great. It's worth upgrading to Premium Economy if you can. St Lucia Hewanorra Airport is pretty basic, also please note that you cannot take trolleys beyond customs so have a few $ to hand for the "Red Cap" service. The Thomson rep (Angie) was waiting with an info pack for us and showed us to our minibus, which we shared with another family for the 90 minute journey to CSL. Luckily we got on well with them, and ended up spending most of our time together! On arrival at reception, we checked... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful