On Friday, May 30, 2025, we picked up the kids from school, dropped them off at home with their grandparents – Thanks, Mom-in-law!! – and set off just the two of us for a quiet weekend in Troia. Our second solo trip in the last 7 years, people… we are very close parents with our little ones. 🙂
We rented a small car with a sunroof from Europcar in Cascais, booked our hotel through Booking and hit the road early in the evening to paradise. We chose not to take the ferry from Setúbal to Troia and stopped for dinner halfway in Comporta and it was a wise decision. 🙂
We arrived in Comporta without reservations and went for a walk to see the available restaurants, without any great expectations. We managed to get a table at Sado – Sublime Comporta and we were lucky enough to see the sun set over the Sado River, a scene worthy of a romantic movie. We ordered gambas a guilho, oysters and shrimp rice and everything was delicious. Service 10, food 10, ambiance 10. Oh, the tree trunk in the middle of the place is real, but the leaves and fruits are not – I asked… lol
Look at Comporta at night, how cute (oh, we had already been there in 2020, see details here).
We went straight to our hotel, the Troia Design Hotel, which is a huge building that doesn’t fit in with the landscape at all. In fact, in my humble opinion, all those tall buildings in Troia should be demolished to make way for houses and low-rise buildings that are more in keeping with beach paradises… lol We booked the cheapest room in the hope of getting an upgrade – since we had seen several reviews about it – but unfortunately it didn’t happen. The view was pretty boring, but the space was great and we enjoyed it anyway. Here are some photos:
We slept beautifully without having to take care of children! 🙂
Day 1 – 5/31/2025
We woke up without rushing and went to have breakfast around 10:30. We went down to the main floor and the restaurant was quite large and had many varieties of fruits, breads, cakes and cheeses. We had a very complete breakfast and then went up to get ready to go to the beach.
Our hotel was in front of the Troia Marina, and we stopped at some kiosks to find out about the boat trips they had available. The company Sado Emotion This was the one that caught my attention the most, because by having speedboats they can cover a larger area in search of the 47 dolphins that live in the region and the chance of seeing dolphins is almost 100%. Since we wanted to relax on the beach and we thought that this tour made sense to do with the kids, we decided to go back with the little ones and enjoy it later. 🙂
We walked along the wooden walkway right next to the casino and went to Troia beach, which was a wonderful surprise. We already knew about the possibility of having natural sand pools because we had seen it on Google Maps (satellite view) and also from the top of Serra da Arrábida when we went there. Little fig tree – see more details in this postt, but when we got there and saw the extensive beach with several pools, we were completely enchanted.
It's drop-dead gorgeous and Celo summed it up well: it's the Lusitanian Sheets – comparing it to the beautiful Lençóis Maranhenses, in Brazil, which we have also been to (see more details here in this post) but whose pools are filled with rainwater and not seawater, like those in Troy.
We spent a long time enjoying the warm water of one of the pools, then walked to the end of the pools, as if we were entering the sea. The view is spectacular and the walk is a lot of fun, as we are surrounded by birds that are filling their mouths with the fish and crustaceans that are trapped in the pools. I thought it was amazing and I couldn't stop thinking about how excited my children would be there. They are the loves of my life! I hope to be able to go back with them one day. 🙂
The only thing I found interesting about Troia beach is that when we looked at the enchanting Serra da Arrábida, we came across the hideous Secil cement factory. Seriously, what a bad joke to have that there in the middle of such a paradise. You can see it in the photos I took below – here on the blog I tell the good and bad things! lol
We left the pool area and stood on Troia beach, near the lifeguards, because we wanted to buy water at the restaurant there, but we received the bad news that it was still closed. It would only open on June 1st, that is, the following day, even though the beach was full and it was one of the hottest weekends of the year. Go figure…lol
We enjoyed the beach calmly until we had to leave to drive and go to the restaurant/beach club we had booked in Comporta, the Sublime Comporta. A friend had recommended it and we made a reservation in advance and had to be there at 3 pm, but there was such a line to get into the parking lot that we only got into the restaurant at around 3:30 pm. We waited a while for our table, but soon we were eating our couvert, ceviche, ajillo shrimp and salmon tartare. We ordered the tiger shrimp as a main course, some drinks and, believe it or not, the bill came to almost 150 euros! I certainly don't plan on going back. I really liked the atmosphere, but I didn't like being served by a waiter who didn't speak Portuguese and who couldn't tell me what the restaurant's specialty was. I felt like I was in a tourist trap surrounded by people who only cared about taking photos and videos for Instagram.
We went back to the hotel to enjoy the pool, but it was crowded and the wind was a bit cold for my taste, and the water wasn't heated. We ended up going to the spa and were able to enjoy a few minutes of the warm pool with several jets, because at 7pm they closed and we had to leave.
We went upstairs to rest and get ready for dinner, but we ended up deciding to order room service and we had burgers in our room for dinner. The restaurants near the hotel didn't seem very good and Celo wanted to watch an important game that was on, so we allowed ourselves to rest in the comfort of our room. After the game, we went out to visit the hotel's casino and I have to admit that it was a disappointment. First, because it took us a while to get in because we had to register at the reception and there was a line; second, because the roulette and blackjack tables were hidden in a small room, as if it were something illegal, with a kind of strange vibe. There were several strange kids playing at the only open roulette table and when I asked if they would open the other one, the area manager said no. All the players were crammed into one table and we didn't feel like playing for a long time, until it finally emptied and we played a bit of blackjack and roulette. We won and lost, of course, but in the end we lost 50 euros. 🙁 We went back to our room feeling a little sad, but excited to be able to get a full night’s sleep without having to wake up early with the kids. What peace! It was just what we needed…
Day 2 – 6/1/2025
We woke up without rushing, went down to have a full breakfast and packed our things to check out. We left our bags in the car in the parking lot. underground from the hotel and we left with the essentials to enjoy one last little beach. This time there was less sun and the tide was already higher, so there were fewer pools, but we stayed there for a few hours enjoying ourselves before getting in the car.
We drove to the pier where the ferries The car ferry leaves towards Setúbal, and luckily we arrived 5 minutes before the boat left, so we didn’t have to wait at all. We paid 26.50 at the totem inside the parking lot and when we parked the car at the ferry, we got out of the car and went up to enjoy the view of the crossing. It must have lasted half an hour and it was very pleasant. We remember when we took it for the first time with little Patrick in the middle of the pandemic – see more details here – and we saw how time is passing…
We drove straight to Lisbon and chose to have lunch in Alcântara, looking at the view of the Tagus and the 25 de Abril bridge, at the restaurant Dock Farm.As the weekend was hot, we imagined that at the end of the day the bridge would be jammed – after all, many people who live in Lisbon go to the beaches of Caparica – so we managed to avoid any stress on the way back. We arrived home at the end of the day, after buying some souvenirs for them at Auchan, and we caught up with our loves!
It's so wonderful to be able to travel with Celo again. The longer we've been together, the more I want to enjoy the world with him. May God continue to bless and protect us always. <3
