We stayed at the Quintinha São João Hotel nestled just a short walk away from the old town. My sister did the research and booked a deal with one of the travel websites to get us the deal. It probably took us about a 10 minute walk to get to the old town, although the walk back was often much longer because the hotel is up a reasonably steep hill.

The room that we had was absolutely massive. It had enough space for two beds, a comfortable sitting lounge, a very large bathroom and it also came with a balcony. Free wi-fi (important for us!) was available although the signal was pretty weak from our room. They could use a repeater to get the signal stronger in all the different rooms. Fortunately it worked quite well if you’re sitting in the sitting rooms on either of the two floors, or the lounge room on the main floor that also hosts some evening happy hour drinks.

We played a number of games of pool and table tennis in their games room and they also had a reasonably sized gym that we never really took advantage of. They had both an outdoor and a covered pool but I guess the weather wasn’t warm enough for anyone to use it.

Breakfast was a great spread of lots of different things, and they even do a cooked breakfast with whatever you want as well. I stopped after our second day because there are only so many cooked breakfasts you can have. I’d certainly recommend the hotel although if you want something without a hike up big hill, you may want to look for something further downtown.