Casa Saramago

The property and location itself is beautiful, and has everything one needs for a comfortable stay.

We love the Portuguese people, but not so much the folks who own/run this property. The fact that not one word of English is spoken nor understood didn’t bother us, we quite like a little bit of a linguistic adventure, but the lady receiving us (I think the owner) couldn’t have been more unfriendly, unhelpful and unaccommodating. Besides some ignored requests, to not turn around to even just smile or greet guests when one enters the lodge is simply rude, and she made it quite obvious that checking out (at 10h30) during her breakfast was quite an annoyance (I would have preferred to have waited for her to finish the mouthful of bread before being dealt with). Not a good bye or Obrigade, but by that stage we didn’t really care anymore. The hotel is beautifully appointed but really should not be using single use plastic cups, wrapped in more plastic in the rooms for the storage of toothbrushes, nor should butter be served in those small disposable butter containers often used by take outs and large hotel chains. Every jam, honey and fruit dish covered in yet even more plastic, even inside where there was not a fly insight. The fact that the families dogs are locked in tiny cages behind the swimming pool, desperate for our attention, coupled with family photographs of bullfighting did not endear this establishments’ ownership to us, and we certainly won’t be back.