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Have a flutter in Hotel Algarve Casino’s gaming rooms
Avenida Tomás Cabreira runs along the top of the beach and is the place to head come sunset. This is when its haul of bars, nightclubs and restaurants sparks in to life. There are quiet places for a meal and a sundowner but, equally, a good number of Irish bars and clubs keep their doors open well in to the night. Otherwise, the seafront casino has a touch of Vegas about it with a nightly show, dinner and dancing, as well as gaming rooms.The shops at Praia da Rocha are pretty much a tourist-oriented selection of boutiques, shacks and stalls dealing in holiday gear and handicrafts. If your trip coincides with the first Monday of the month, keep an eye out for the market. It attracts hundreds of vendors with stalls heaving with textiles and wood carvings. For more choice, Portimão, 20 minutes’ walk away, is jam-packed with stores – branded labels through to bargain leather handbags and belts, they’re all here. Plus, retail parks sit just outside of town.
Read MorePraia da Rocha is 20 kilometres from the inland town of Silves. This place is big on its sights – there’s a Gothic cathedral and cobblestone streets radiating off a pretty square, for example. The real crowd-pleaser, though, is the chunky Moorish castle on the hilltop. Because the town’s set on the banks of the Arade River, it’s easy to reach by boat from Portimão. Journeys take around 90 minutes each way.
Read MoreRegardless of taste and budget, you’ll never go hungry in Praia da Rocha. Restaurants sit cheek by jowl from one end of the main avenue along the top of the beach to the other. There’s Chinese, Italian and British, as well as local Portuguese places. Down on the sands, laid-back cafés dish up tapas likes it’s going out of fashion. Portimão Marina, meanwhile, takes its cue from the ocean with fish restaurants bathed in the aroma of barbecued sardines.
Read MoreThis is one of the town’s summer highlights and a really popular event. It goes without saying sardines top the menu – charcoal-grilled, seasoned with sea salt, and served with doorstep wedges of bread. But it’s not just about the fish. There’s live music and market stalls by the riverfront every night, plus fireworks to round it all off.
Read MorePraia da Rocha Beach is a 2-kilometre arc of sand, speckled with white-and-yellow loungers and parasols. A wooden walkway spools its length, with a row of beach cafés just behind. At the eastern end, there’s an area for feet-in-the-sand sports where lots of competitions take place in the summer. Plus, there are plenty of surf schools and watersports centres with the likes of jet-skis, pedalos, windsurfers and paragliders for the taking.
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