In the 15th century Tavira was a major port connecting the Algarve with Morocco. Salt was a prized commodity — the air still smells of it and there are giant winking piles of it in the pans of the Ria Formosa Natural Park — used to season the cod (which we know as bacalhau) that was exported around the world to Portugal’s colonies.

Nowadays the adjective “major” isn’t one you’d associate with this town, closer to the Spanish border than the Algarve’s brassier resorts of Carvoeiro, Albufeira and Vilamoura, west of Faro. It’s a small place; not even 30,000 people call it home. There are narrow stone streets lined with low-key cafés and restaurants, plus 37 churches (fag packet maths makes that one for every 800ish people). Flor de Sal table salt, hand-harvested right here, sits in little pots on bar tables. Flamingoes stand about in the flats of the Ria Formosa Natural Park; egrets bob about in the Gilhao River that cuts through the town. If river walks won’t cut it, there’s a £2, 25-minute boat to one of the Algarve’s nicest beaches — the Ilha Tavira. I’ll call it: this is one of the nicest towns on this stretch of southern Portuguese coast.

There was just one problem. There wasn’t a nice enough hotel — until now.

This summer the Palacio de Tavira, a grand 19th-century mansion that was once a family home, opened with 20 rooms. It stands proudly on Praça Dr António Padinha square, which has a little triangular suntrap garden in the middle and the Nossa Senhora da Ajuda ou de São Paulo church on one side so from the hotel you’re close enough to hear the bells.

What you need to know

Where is it? Faro airport is a 30-minute drive west from Tavira. The town itself is walkable, so you won’t need to hire a car unless you want to explore other fishing villages in the eastern Algarve — an Uber starts from about £35.
Insider tip Take some euros with you — the taxi boat to Ilha da Tavira and miniature trail at Praio do Barril only accept cash.
Who will love it? Tavira is a crowd-pleaser — great for families and couples and everyone else in between. If you want a first taste of the eastern Algarve, it’s a great bet.

A reimagined 19th-century Portuguese mansion

The hotel, renovated by the Spanish hotel group Marugal, which is behind boutiques such as Cap Rocat in Mallorca and Menorca’s Torralbenc, fused the grand mansion with a Moorish-style medina wing out the back, centred around a plant-filled internal courtyard. This indoor-outdoor confection, arranged over three levels, has bleached-white stairs connecting them, and when we clamber up them to find the tiddly pools at the top, it feels a bit like being stuck in an Escher painting.

The Palacio de Tavira in Tavira, Algarve, Portugal, features white buildings with tiled roofs, a terracotta staircase, and lush green plants.

The Palacio de Tavira was recently renovated

I’m here in October (still scorching at 26C) — technically shoulder season — with my five-year-old son, who, like me, is a big fan of the Algarve. We’ve been visiting the region for years, drawn by its wide-open beaches, seafood restaurants and easy-breezy way of life. It doesn’t hurt that as well as being supremely family-friendly it’s affordable too — in the April 2025 holiday money report the Post Office ranked the Algarve as the best-value holiday destination, cheaper even than Bali, Hoi An or Prague. You’ll rarely pay more than a few euros for a glass of wine, and dinner for two — including drinks — comes to just £40. Double rooms at Palacio de Tavira start from £153 a night, including a delicious breakfast of eggs, pastries and fresh juices, which rather proves the point.

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After walking into the hotel’s grand entrance, clocking the shiny emerald tiling around original stone steps, the spa, the candlelit Bar da Lua and wooden tables and the white tablecloths of the elegant Mirsal restaurant — already heaving with Algarvians — my heart sinks a bit. This is not a hotel to come to with a young child who just wants to kick a ball around its cool stone floors: it’s a love nest. I immediately make plans to return with my husband.

Our room, 102, is gorgeous — blond wood floors, oatmeal-coloured rugs, crepey linen sofas, raffia headboards. It has doors that open onto the internal terracotta-floored courtyard, which means we can fall asleep with the doors open to the cool night; it also means I have somewhere to escape with a glass of vinho verde and a book when my son falls asleep. Owing to the building’s configuration, each of the rooms across the three levels is different and has a unique aspect. I’m quite taken with room 315, which has a secret veranda and panoramic views across Tavira.

A bright hotel room at the Palacio de Tavira in Tavira, Algarve, Portugal, features a king-sized bed, a wall-mounted TV, a balcony, and a nightstand.

One of the rooms in the mansion

BERNARDO LÚCIO

Tavira’s beaches are vast — and empty

Owing to my son’s Duracell battery levels of energy, sitting admiring the Algarve pottery on the walls in Mirsal or basking in the Moorish courtyard is not an option. We do venture up to the two tiny rectangular pools on the roof, which offer a gobsmacking view across Tavira, although being unheated they’re suitable for Wim Hof only. So when we’re not bouncing a ball to each other across the square outside, we find the Atlantic beaches a far safer bet. One morning we take the taxi boat to Ilha Tavira, a slender seven-mile-long island that sits just below mainland Portugal, to find vast white-sand beaches with no visitors (£2.30 adults, £1 children; en.silnido.com). It’s almost too breezy to play bat and ball, so we switch it up for running into the surf and jumping in the waves; the journey back through the flats of the Ria Formosa Natural Park is just as enchanting.

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Another day we take the miniature train to another empty beach, Praia do Barril, which rattles across the estuary of the Risa Formosa — we spot crabs scuttling in the mud — and along sand dunes to the beach itself, with its 100-strong graveyard of anchors (£3.50 adults, £1.75 children over 5; pedrasdelrei.com). Words with “easily accessible”, “full of cheap cafés” and “nice loos” aren’t particularly sexy, but they’re a strong selling point for Tavira’s beaches — particularly with children.

Aerial view of Tavira Island, Portugal, showing a sandy beach with people and umbrellas, next to the turquoise sea with waves and swimmers, and a green landscape with a river inland.

The coast is charming and quiet

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The coast is magnetic, especially after escaping a wet Britain, but Tavira itself is so charming that we keep returning to it, to wander its snaking stone alleyways and to run by the Gilhao River. A low point was boarding the baby-blue and white tourist train to trundle around the town — full of incomprehensible, boring history in about six different languages. But unfortunately such tours are catnip to five-year-olds (£5.30 adults, £2 children; civitatis.com). Much better was scoffing a dinner of grilled octopus, cod ceviche and goat’s cheese salad at O’Tonel, a bistro with outdoor wooden tables hidden down a bougainvillea-strewn side street near Palacio de Tavira. There’s even a guitar-strumming local to soundtrack the evening (mains from £14.50; otonel.pt).

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When I come back — it’s a when, not an if — there are plenty of things still on my list. A Super Bock at Santa Lucia bar, which I eyed wistfully on the walk to O’Tonel. Dinner at the Michelin-starred A Ver Tavira; a massage at Palacio de Tavira’s Luma Spa; a martini at Bar da Lua. It won’t be long before others catch on.
Cathy Adams was a guest of Palacio de Tavira, which has B&B doubles from £153 (palaciodetavira.com). Fly to Faro

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