Meco Beach Villa

Fabulous villa with a lovely pool in a quiet, gated community. Very clean. Nicely decorated. TV with international stations. Bed linen and towels provided. Kitchen well-stocked with cutlery etc, including a coffee machine. A/C in living room and two of the three bedrooms; the third bedroom, which is a double has doors out onto the patio so no A/C needed. There are two bathrooms. There are two double bedrooms, and one bedroom with a bunk bed and a single bed. One of the double bedrooms is downstairs. There is an outdoor grill for BBQ and an outdoor eating area. There are plenty of sun loungers and seats in the garden. Within walking distance of Alfarim, which was about a 10 minute walk away. There is a shop about three minutes from the villa, and a pharmacy about a five minute walk away. Both are convenient but not cheap. Alfarim is a very small village with a couple of nice local restaurants. There is a bus service 2 minutes from the location which can bring you to Praya do Meco or Sesimbra. If you want a complete “chill out by the pool” holiday it is perfect. We ate in some lovely restaurants in Sesimbra. Lots of great seafood, but if you have any “picky” eaters who don’t like fish, there are nice pizza and pasta places too.

The only down side was the location. You absolutely need a car to get around because it’s a 50 minute walk to the nearest beach, Praya do Meco, and it’s a twenty minute drive to Sesimbra, the main beach resort/town in the area. There is a local bus that drops you near Praya do Meco, but it’s still another ten to fifteen minute walk from the bus stop. NB there is a big gap in buses in the afternoon. Also, the bus is meant to take cards/tap and/or coins but no bus would let us tap/use our cards. I think the bus fare was €2.60 per person no matter where you were going; at least that’s what we were charged. There are buses to bring you to Sesimbra which is about twenty minutes away. We didn’t know we would need a car so only tried to hire one when we arrived and could not get one to fit 5 people without heading back to Lisbon. The location meant we were relying on taxis (use the Bolt or Uber apps) to go out to dinner in the evening. But because of the location, no driver would take us anywhere other than Sesimbra because it wasn’t worth their while to go anywhere else, so we missed a lot of other beaches, restaurants, and places we wanted to visit.