lounging beneath my majestic coastal villa in the soothing warmth of a heated pool (cold beer in hand, naturally), strolling along beaches lined by sandstone cliffs, and drifting into the simple delight of the village restaurants of Carvoiero — officially declare myself up for the job of Mayor of Algarve. It’s a selfless offer for a taxing position, but we all need to give the world a little philanthropy from time to time.

The Algarve, for the uninitiated, is the southern stretch of Portugal’s coast that offers sunshine, golf, and general good living to the locals fortunate to live in the area, and to Europeans from less pleasant climes seeking respite from foul weather.

As such, it’s fairly well built-up, with the area around Faro, the largest town on the Algarve, particularly busy — nothing quite like the Costa del Sol in neighbouring Spain, certainly, but not a quiet and remote retreat either. Head a little further west, though, to a village like Carvoiero, and you find the perfect escape, away from tourist throngs, but certainly not isolated.

Carvoiero’s a two hour drive from Lisbon, down a highway peppered with service stations that sell cold beer (for passengers, mind), much needed when you’ve been marooned at Barcelona’s airport for six hours thanks to an airline strike. Portuguese beer is excellent, led by the pale, crisp lager that is Super Bock, and eases the passage into one of the laidback treasures of the Algarve.

Small, colourful, with a sliver of beach below the apartments, bars, restaurants and cafés that constitute a charming village, Carvoiero is big enough to offer nocturnal entertainment, but not too overrun with England football jerseys stretched at the belly, the mandatory uniform of holidaying Englishmen intent on forsaking an afternoon’s Portuguese sun for live Sky coverage of Sheffield Wednesday versus Ipswich in a local bar.

Pictures certainly too good to be true…

The village itself wouldn’t be a bad option to stay in; thanks to the travelling nous of Richard Valentine, a South African mate of mine happily earning a living as a cab driver in London, we’d come across a villa on the hill above Carvoiero that we’d bravely booked on the internet, based solely on pictures that were almost certainly too good to be true.

Photographs suggested a three-storey palace with swimming pool, regal veranda, and improbable views of the sea; the reality was likely to be a second-hand motorhome parked in an abandoned field, next to a holidaying mob from the Millwall Supporters Club.

Such fears proved unfounded, though, a grinning Valentine welcoming us into what will be my mayoral office as and when I get voted into power: hallway spilling into a lounge you could have parked the aforementioned motorhome in, and out onto a veranda looking down onto the pool, and across the hills to the ocean. Half a dozen bedrooms, another upstairs veranda, and more of that view: before you know it, you’ve taken your first dozen photos, jumped into swimming trunks, and begun the debate as to why on earth you haven’t been to Portugal before.

The allure of the house, and more specifically a sun-drenched pool, can easily take care of entire days spent blissfully idle, but there are myriad attractions in the immediate vicinity. The walled town of Lagos is far smaller and safer than its chaotic Nigerian namesake, and is worth a morning pottering about in, while the local beaches, guarded by towering sandstone fortresses that make an arresting setting, offer a tanning alternative to the swimming pool, with water that’s pleasant, but fresher than you might expect, as you’re still technically in Atlantic waters.

"…golf on the Algarve is awfully good fun…"

The Algarve’s golf is probably its most established attraction, however, with former Ryder Cup venue Vilamoura headlining numerous European Tour and Championship courses that run the stretch of southern Portugal. You’ll need multiple visits to get through them all; local knowledge suggested San Lorenzo, Vale do Lobo and Quinta da Lago, with San Lorenzo first up.

It doesn’t take long to discover that golf on the Algarve is awfully good fun; primarily geared for a tourist market, you’re guaranteed a relaxed environment, and courses maintained with high volumes of traffic in mind. Not that San Lorenzo was crowded; instead, a course not overly taxing threaded its way through trees, offered the occasional sea view, and finished with a few beers with Antonio Santos, the course director, a man vested of one of life’s better jobs (and a shoe in for Minister of Golf once I’m Mayor of Algarve).

Algarve Car Hire