ALBUFEIRA MARINA - WHAT'S THERE?

The original plan was for a Lake Hotel, a strange plan for starters when there is so much natural water just metres away. Anyway this meant they needed to build up the land to make it flat, no doubt at great cost as it took them the whole of the first year moving earth to achieve that. However it was reported that prospective developers had concerns about who was going to pay to maintain the lake, which created doubts about the planned lake. At this point in time, if you could see the big picture surely you would have said OK let's forget all that and work with the existing incline, after all the Portuguese are amazing at building on inclines aren't they. However committees get on a "journey" and keep rolling forward so they decided to scrap the lake and have instead have a mirror of water (I think it loses something in translation). So now they have built a huge but very shallow water feature with fountains in the middle, giving us the poetic "mirror of water." The whole area has probably used more slabs and tiles than exists in the Old Town, so much for the environment, and still no signs of any developer wanting to come and build a hotel.

I guess the planners hadn't heard of Oceanville or the Casas da Marina development at the opposite end of the marina?

C'est la vie

Had a quick drive round the phase 2 area and after 20 months !! I did see a lot of changes, I will explore it more when the heat dies down. I thought the old wall had gone but see it from another angle and was wondering did they just fill in the wells?

Not only have the old wells been preserved they have also been restored and made safe with covers. They are within the boundary of the of the old water works and I was also glad to see the front wall remains and has been restored.

I was told anything over 60 years old needs to be maintained although when did we ever see developers abide by that rule, glad to see they did here.

The espelho d'água will exist, if you look at the different grey colour rectangle of tiles they are surrounded by drains and slightly concave encompassing fountains. It may not be a very deep lake but it might make 150mm if they ever turn the water back on.

I have been down to the marina and after a walk around I have updated the information on page 1. There have been many changes even since January. A few new places, a few have closed or look closed.

The water feature is no longer working!

Some land is being cleared at the western end of the row of shops near the water feature, for what I could not tell. Also, just around the corner opposite the bus stop, it looks like a petrol station is being built.

The land adjacent to the shops is for more villas, one was built about two years ago and a second is near to completion now. More to follow.