We had arranged to meet Suzanne here, so having pre-booked a berth whilst in Albufeira we set off late morning. The distance between the two ports was about 7 miles and there was very little wind. Vilamoura had been described in our book as a 'dated tourist ghetto, built in the 80's', and by some, as the 'glamorous' part of the Algarve. Reading the blurb about the marina, it had 1000 berths for boats of a maximum of 43m, and had planned to expand to three times that size recently but that this expansion had been prevented by the financial crisis - this certainly suggested a busy and buzzing, place. When we arrived, checked in and picked up our guest we went for a look around, heading towards the supermarket, which after a few wrong turns, we eventually found - the directions in the marina had sent us in completely the wrong direction! Vilamoura is basically a man made town built around the marina, and there really is not much else to it. Outside of the marina it is all villas and largely residential. The marina was packed with bars, shops and restaurants, and lots of flashy sports cars - a bit like Puerto Banus for the Algarve.
After lunch a spot of shopping was done by the girls while John stayed on board enjoying the peace and quiet.
Dinner was in the marina, in a restaurant with the best fish selection - most served mainly steaks and meat. Finding this place had taken quite a while in the afternoon and it was very busy largely with Portuguese and Spanish people and few English which looked promising. Post dinner it was decided that cocktails were in order and we ended up in a karaoke bar of all places! Despite the length of the cocktail menu, Suzanne decided she wanted something different with Bailey's and Amaretto and the Cocktail Suzanne was invented by the barman, which Suzanne thought was so delicious that she couldn't stop at just the one.....
