We asked glossy holidaymakers to tell us what (and where) is on their beachy Bucket Lists … Travel Writer Tim Magee did not disappoint…
MELIDES, PORTUGALÂ
From Lisbon airport to the Vasco Da Gama bridge takes exactly five minutes by car. Lisbon is overcrowded now, as is its immediate coast. Turning your back on those crowds and boarding the windy bridge that connects northern and southern Portugal never feels better than in early June. The impulse to drive to the beach is hardwired in some of us. Despite being stupidly lucky to live on a beach in Youghal, during summer, when kids are in the house, there are still pilgrimages across our intercounty bridge to Goat Island. We leave the beach to drive to the beach.
This particular Portuguese landscape doesn’t feel like western Europe. Once you come off the motorway, every kilometre is progressively more alien. Roads and villages are festooned with gigantic nests, rackety with the Jurassic sounds the mute birds make when clacking their beaks. The flamingos and rice paddies seem lost between olive groves and allotments. A sub-tropical zoo hemmed in by ultrawhite dunes and coastline with blues from the dog-eared photo album in my head of the beaches in the Med or the Sea of Cortez, with its warm water colours, this Atlantic peninsula is like a drunken collage of Mexico, Miami, and Vietnam.
I skip past Comporta towards Melides, which I thought was my secret in the way Comporta was when it first stole my heart – and wallet – but Melides is no-one’s secret. Melides has a hotel now – shoe designer Christian Louboutin’s magnificent first. You could spend the day in the tiny village and not even notice. There is no ostentatious or even obvious entrance visible, and no red footprints about the town. A couple of miles away is Praia da Galé-FontaÃnhas. Parking beside a great walloping wall of jasmine, you’re reminded Alentejo is the land of the nose. Shut your eyes and it’s like sharing a sauna with the entire Le Labo range. Behind you, earthy yet citrus – if they are harvesting the sacred cork – all the pines and ornery eucalyptus. When you tackle the dunes, beachside base notes kick in: thyme, rosemary and the bossiest of lavenders, spritzed by the tang of salty air.
Follow your nose to the fairytale path with sun-bleached wooden steps that zig-zag the gold limestone cliffs and then out to the heart-lifting roar of waves crashing onto miles and miles of empty perfect beach. @manandasuitcase
She is the queen of no makeup makeup and even manages to make a smokey eye look subtle. When everyone else was going for heavy contour and laminated eyebrows, she continued to promote enhancing your natural features with simple tricks and smart product placement. If you have seen any of her videos, you will notice how little product she actually uses. Even Victoria Beckham commented how surprised she was when she went to remove her makeup after a shoot with Lisa on how little product was applied.