On a recent family getaway to Portugal, Patrick Holloway found himself wondering: what makes a holiday? Navigating airports and new territory with two small kids isn’t a walk in the park, but the simple pleasures abound.
The holiday starts like most holidays, in Cork airport, swearing I will never travel Ryanair again, as my wife and I shift 1kg from our suitcase into rucksacks. My two daughters, Aurora, 8 and Luna Faye, 6, are not impressed that they now actually have to carry something. I am never giving Ryanair another cent, I think, until I am in the air and pay eight euro for a warm white wine at 10am in the morning because clocks don’t exist in the sky, right? The rules don’t apply.
I sit with Aurora, and a few rows behind, my wife sits with Luna Faye. My best friend is also on the flight for a hen party, and my daughters walk up the aisle to see her, to steal her lipstick. She is with her sister, who is also a friend, and with others who are friends or acquaintances, depending on the amount of drink taken, but now we’re in the sky — no rules apply, everyone’s a friend, even the man sitting next to me with a Manchester United tattoo and a screen saver of himself on his phone. Seeing it makes me feel sad. I start imagining a life for him and have to stop, wanting to hug this stranger, who is probably very happy, but I worry he’s never read a book and I want to slip one into his rucksack.
As the plane is descending, I speak to him, he gives me and my daughter a Polo mint and I tell him how I used to play a game with my dad of who could keep the mint the longest in their mouth. I had him completely wrong, of course. We always do, don’t we, shotfire stories in our heads that simplify the world around us.
A quick Uber ride to our hotel, 3HB, which is in Faro’s old town and centrally located. Our room isn’t ready yet, so we head to the rooftop pool for some food in the sun. We have nearly forgotten what it feels like to have such heat on our skin. Everything about the hotel is well thought out, sleek and comfortable. It gives off boutique vibes though it has over a hundred rooms.
We decided to book this holiday on a whim, sick of the low Irish grey sky, and with cheap flights from Cork to Faro, it gave us some wiggle room for a nicer hotel. This place didn’t disappoint. We had thought about somewhere all-inclusive but felt the girls were old enough to maybe face a city break that would be for all of us. We are about to test that theory.
We have lunch in the sun, fresh prawns, sea bass, and even the girls taste the assortment of food with minimal complaint. In the evening, we have dinner at O Coreto, right on the marina, and Luna Faye eats grilled tuna, and we celebrate this with high fives – she’s not the best eater.
Our room is large, welcomingly comfortable, with a balcony, and all the fancy buttons on the wall that open the curtains and dim the lights. This is highly entertaining for the children and for me.
Breakfast, which is included, is a unanimous success. There are rows of fresh fruit and soft, warm bread, mini muffins, homemade cake, an array of granolas and seeds, yoghurts and cereal, and trays of their own Pastel de Nata (a Portuguese sweet custard pastry). And there’s the à la carte menu.
We spend most of the next morning in the infinity rooftop pool of the hotel and watch birds make their nests in neighbouring buildings. There is something about Faro that is unfinished. Old and historic, yes, but also incomplete, like it is still catching up with itself.
In the afternoon, we walk the cobbled streets, weaving in and out of shops and saying, yes, maybe later, to the girls when they ask for something we know we will not buy. It’s a largely pedestrianised town with the 18th-century architecture preserved—the medieval foundations at every turn, with baroque churches and neoclassical facades. It is charming, and, with two young children, very manageable. Nothing is too far, and there is always a café close by, or an ice cream shop, or somewhere that serves a cold beer.
We pay to visit Faro cathedral, and climb its windy, narrow staircase to the top, which offers rich, wide views of the terracotta roofs and courtyards below, and further still to the lagoons and islands of Rio Formosa. The cathedral inside is also beautiful, if not a little eerie. For dinner, we eat in the hotel, after trying one place that was recommended but after 15 minutes of sitting at a table, not one waiter had come to take our order. We play games as we eat, and the girls do not ask for phones or complain, and I wonder why at home it is not similar. My wife and I get to enjoy a bottle of wine and even finish conversations, a rare luxury.
On the third day, we do a hop-on, hop-off boat tour to the nearby islands. It is a large speed boat and is one of the highlights of the trip—the girls in their life jackets, hair blowing in the wind, both laughing their little heads off, until Luna finds it all too much and lies down, covers herself with my cardigan, and falls asleep.
We play games as we eat, and the girls do not ask for phones or complain, and I wonder why at home it is not similar. My wife and I get to enjoy a bottle of wine and even finish conversations, a rare luxury.
The first island is Ilha Deserta, which is exactly what it is, and exactly what makes it so intriguing. There is a walkway that covers the island and we walk to the first beach, which is on the north side, and it’s a calm lagoon – a perfect spot for a quick swim and shell-picking. There is one restaurant on the island, and we stop there for a quick drink before heading to the south side, where the waves are wild from the Atlantic. The beach is unending and empty, and again, there is that unfinished feeling about the whole place, like we are in the future of an aftermath of some beautiful catastrophe.
Ilha da Culatra is next, a barrier island inside the protected Rio Formosa Natural Park— a real fishing village with an authentic Algarve atmosphere. There are no cars and everything is very simple, and if on Ilha Deserta we were in some future, on this island, we have most definitely gone backwards, and it feels amazing. We eat ceviche, prawn curry, and it is the best food of the holiday, and the cheapest. I ask the waitress if there is a tennis court on the island, already thinking I could live here, lead a simple life, but the answer is no, so the daydream fades before it ever really materialises.
Our last day comes too soon. We spend it enjoying the pool, and wandering the streets one more time, taking photos on the marina, under the Arco da Vila – the iconic gateway into the old town. We are maybe too adventurous at the last restaurant, ordering typical plates from Faro and Portugal. The girls are not impressed and something in one of the dishes turns my stomach a little, and we were doing so well.
The airport is close, so we get an early breakfast. I wrap six Pastel de Nata in one of the napkins and soon we are back in the airport and on the plane. I go through the photos, and wonder what makes a holiday. At the end of the day it is the little things we take with us, doing a wordsearch with Luna Faye and seeing the joy in her finding the word ‘historical’, the little secrets that Aurora lets us in on, a crush (her first!), the smooth curved deck chairs that move back and forth with the slightest movement of a foot, an arm, almost like magic, the espressos on the balcony with my wife while the girls play in the bedroom, the sun descending behind the terracotta town.
Photography by Unsplash.
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