Bela Vista Hotel & Spa

Make time for the coast on foot. The cliffs of Praia da Rocha and the shore beyond are riddled with hidden coves, sea caves and small lagoons — some only reachable at the right tide — and a walk along the clifftops turns up picnic spots and viewpoints that most guests never leave the pool to find. And that pool is the other secret: it stays open through the night, and a late swim over the lit-up coast is the thing to do after dinner.

Bela Vista is the rare Algarve hotel with genuine history. A clifftop house above Praia da Rocha dating to 1918, it was restored in 2012 by the designer Graça Viterbo into a polished, grown-up sea-view hotel that keeps its period character — stained glass, aged wood, painted ceilings — while delivering the comforts of a modern five-star. The rooms run across three houses, the antique Palacete, the bright Casa Azul and the garden-and-palm Casa Jardim, most of them facing the Atlantic.

The pleasures are the setting, the table and the service. The heated panoramic pool, lined with palms and kept open into the night, is the social heart of the hotel and the detail guests remember; VISTA, the sea-facing restaurant under chef João Oliveira, holds a Michelin star and heads a line-up that runs to a relaxed terrace, a bar and a pool kitchen, with homemade madeleines turning up at breakfast. The Spa by L'Occitane handles the rest. Service throughout is attentive and personal, the kind that quietly arranges whatever you need.

It suits couples and grown-up travellers after character and a great clifftop position over a big resort — a historic house, a fine kitchen and the Atlantic below, in the middle of one of the Algarve's busier beach towns yet set apart above it. The beach, the caves and the coastal walks are at the foot of the cliffs; the comforts are all at the top. Not one for families with young children, but for everyone else a characterful, well-run grande dame of the coast.