In early January 2024 we went on a short trip to Faro, Portugal. I wanted a few days of winter sunshine, so I checked the Southampton and Bournemouth airport websites to see where they have services to which might offer such a thing. I'd never heard of Faro, but it turns out you can't get much further south in Europe than there. It's closer to North Africa than Lisbon. RyanAir have a direct flight service to Faro from Bournemouth, so we booked tickets.

I'd never flown with a budget airline, and I was apprehensive. These guys don't get a great press. And sure enough, the service was very much no-frills:

I was naively wondering what sort of adapter I might require to plug my headset into the plane's entertainment system. Turns out there isn't one. I've not flown on a plane without one since the late 1980s. On this RyanAir plane there wasn't even a reclining seat, nor, for that matter, a decent seat cushion. And cramped - like most taller than average men I spent the flight with my leg in the isle. They certainly pack you in! Fortunately it was only a couple of hours. I'd hesitate before flying for much longer in these conditions.

You don't get to take more than 10kg without paying quite a lot more, and we were only going to 5 days, so we did it on hand luggage. So no decent camera, just the phone. I only took a handful of shots.

This is what we went for:

The beach is very much like Perth.

The weather's a bit of a lottery. We had sunshine and driving rain on the first day, then beautiful sunshine for the next 4 days. It started to rain again when we were in the car heading back to the airport for the flight home. I spent a good part of each day sat on the beach or the hotel balcony in a T-shirt. It was perfect, just what I wanted.

We booked a suite at the Wydham Grand Resort. Honestly, we all but had the place to ourselves. Those people that were there were playing golf, so the pool was always deserted. The receptionist told us it was always quiet in the first week of January, but the hotel was booked out for the second week. Odd, but OK, noted for next time.

Ending with a selfie on the beach!