Octant Évora, Portugal: review, itinerary and top tips for holidays with a family

I love a multi-destination trip. Greek islands. Croatian hotspots. Sicilian coastline. I make my 11-year-old pack light and we drag our carry-ons around from place to place. Except, this holiday, she wanted stillness and a whole lot of horizontal lounging. “Can’t we stay in one place and just chill out,” she asked?

As a solo parent, I feel a little conflicted about languishing in family-orientated resorts. Quite honestly, I find them intimidating. I picture big groups around the buffet with lots of 2.4 children dynamics that will make our dinky family of two feel outnumbered, so I’m always looking for a special kind of place to fit our brief. And this one does.

Octant Évora is a not-too-big, not-too-small slice of serenity in the sprawling Alentejo region, which if I go to again, I’m really going to have to learn how to say better. The Alentejo makes up a sizeable chunk of Portugal’s mainland (just under 30%) and its name means ‘beyond the river Tejo’. An apt translation seeing as the first thing you do upon leaving Lisbon is drive across the 25 de Abril bridge (one of Europe’s longest suspension bridges and a jaw-dropping structure to cross on a sunny day), watching the Tejo disappear in the rear-view mirror as you head towards the Alentejo: more than 10,000 square miles of rolling farmland that produces Portugal’s wheat, olives, wine and cork.  

Drive 75 minutes south from Lisbon and you’ll get to the Hamptons-like sand dunes of Comporta (also worth a visit if you want to lose yourself in mosquito-frenzied nature) but we are headed 100 minutes east to Octant Évora – just 20 minutes past the region’s capital of Évora. Having read up on it, it’s somewhere I’d love to explore further but this is a strictly chilled break and I’m under instructions from the daughter that we can’t leave the hotel. This, it turns out, won’t be a problem.

The resort

Octant Évora is like a mirage in the desert: something that shouldn’t technically be there but that also looks entirely like it should be. It’s May half term and 32 degrees outside but inside is refreshingly cool and serene. The reception, all double-height elegance and rustic wood tones, has a tree sprouting from the middle of its floor – a fitting reminder that here, nature is everywhere you turn.

If you’re a fan of flowing clean-line spaces, you’ll be indulged here. Up the stairs is where all the action is: the À Terra restaurant, alfresco bar, slick spa complex and two very good-looking outdoor pools flanked by lines of comfy loungers. I pass an ice-cream cart. Then a refreshment station stocked with iced fruit water and complimentary factor-50 suncream. When the afternoon sun is at its peak, I later learn this is where surprise smoothies are served on trays and nobody refuses them.

Walk out beyond the pool – left are 56 white cubed rooms with verandas or balconies; right are 16 villas with private pools – and you begin to get a glimpse of Octant Évora’s finest asset: its 27 acres, all of which can be admired from three blissful ‘contemplation pools’ that can be found at the end of long winding wooden boardwalks. Each pool is wonderfully private, sitting on its own decked platform surrounded by daybeds and reading spots and, I swear, if it wasn’t for the distinct lack of giraffe and wildebeest, you’d think you were overlooking the African savanna.  

For the kids

There is a LOT to delight little people here, from a VIP arrival (the cutest mini check-in desk is on hand so smaller guests can fill out their own forms at reception) to the teepee tents in the rooms alongside mini spa robe and organic toiletries. It’s where my daughter retreats with her Nintendo Wii during downtime, a retreat to call her own.

Then there’s the fun schedule – a weekly timetable of activities for the under 12s to ensure their days are packed with, should they want it, archery, yoga, treasure hunts and mug-cake making.

But by far the biggest draw is the fact that outside is like one giant charming forest school. There’s an animal farm (it’s very Doctor Dolittle; you can go and take care of a pony, sheep, dwarf goats and chickens) and a wild ‘Land of Explorers’ playground chicly designed with wooden cabins, rope bridges, hammocks and logs to hop between. ‘Little farmers’ gardening workshops and ‘Little Scientists’ experimental play sessions are run out in nature. And it all sits beyond the bottom of the garden.

Also worth a note is the indoor pool, which all the kids LOVED, even if the parents around me were itching to get outside for some sunbathing time (family hours for the indoor pool are 11am-5pm). A delightfully comfortable warm-bath temperature complete with massage jets, in May it makes the very pleasant outdoor pool feel positively chilly.

Dinner options

À Terra restaurant is the only eatery onsite with differing lunch and dinner menus, meaning lunches are lighter (we tucked into local cheeses and ‘lobinhos’ smoked meats, grape gazpacho, codfish and chickpea salad) and dinners heartier, with pork chops from the grill alongside fresh lettuce and herb salad being my stay’s winning combination.

Children’s menus and picnics are on offer too – as well as a food truck in the summer months – but I have a child whose favourite food is octopus (don’t ask – she’s an expensive date) so her daily ‘usual’ was octopus salad in gazpacho, always kicked off with the bread bowl accompanied by olives and coriander mash.

The one time she went casual, she attended a pizza-making workshop (the fun schedule I spoke of earlier) while I learnt about the winemaking heritage of the Alentejo region in the hotel’s bottle-stocked Enoteca. Surrounded by more than 300 wines, it seemed mean to sample merely three.

Getting out and about

Octant Évora’s Perdiganito Reserve, an extra slice of land developed last year, should be your first exploration point, by bike or by foot. There’s a very handy map so you can navigate its trails and observation platforms that stretch down to the Monte Novo reservoir, which are accessible even at night as the pathways are lit until 1am in the summer.

If you want to go further afield than this, you’ll definitely need a car because this place is rural with a capital R. Évora, a Unesco world heritage site for nearly 40 years, is a 20-minute drive and boasts Roman Baths in its City Hall and several megalithic sites, the most important of which – Cromeleque dos Almendres – is mindbogglingly 2,000 years older than Stonehenge.

For wine lovers, there’s also plenty of Enotourism here and you can tour the Alentejo Wine Route if you’ve got a designated driver. Lakes and dams abound too if watersports are more your thing – and Lake Alqueva, the largest artificial lake in Western Europe, is just an hour away.

Need to know

Despite being a family-friendly resort, the contemplation pools at the end of the gardens are sadly adults only. The indoor pool area is also reserved for adults before 11am and after 5pm.

In your room, you’ll find a sun hat and beach bag so there’s no need to double pack these. There’s also a yoga mat in your wardrobe, which is a lovely addition for namaste devotees. All rooms are really spacious whether they’re doubles or families with bunks, so there’s plenty of room to stretch out.

Most of the kids’ activities are included as part of your stay but a select number (pizza making, pottery, mini bartenders) incur an extra charge of around 10 euros per child and need to be reserved in advance at reception.

Activities are designed for ages 4-12, although under 4s are welcome when accompanied by an adult. Having said that, my daughter was 10 during our stay and thought most of the schedule was too babyish for her, especially after joining a group of 5 and 6-year-olds for pizza making (not cool, mother). Obviously, the age of your classmates is luck of the draw during your stay but I’d say activities on offer are more suited for pre-tweens. Most teens who aren’t bookworms might be bored here.

Despite stopping when the Algarve starts, this is still the south of Portugal so the weather during May half term was perfect temperature and the hotel not too busy. Hard recommend for a visit during this time.   

Our itinerary

Sunday

From Gatwick, we flew in and out of Lisbon airport and, due to the late flight time, we stayed over at a Lisbon airport hotel to get an early start the next day. Around 10am, we took a taxi to get to Octant Évora, which the hotel arranged for us but we’d recommend hiring a car if you want to tour more of the Alentejo.

Monday

We arrived at midday to enjoy our first octopus and gazpacho lunch before unpacking, exploring and spending the afternoon by the pool. I don’t think this needs any more detail (it was lovely).

Tuesday & Wednesday

Breakfast is a brilliant buffet affair with additional hot dishes to order from the table. At 11am, my daughter is impatient for an hour plus in the indoor pool, followed by a garden walk, lunch and a lazy afternoon by the pool before dinner. I have no shame in admitting we did this for three whole days and mastered quite the routine.

Thursday

We leave at 4pm to head to the airport for an 8pm flight feeling fully flopped and refreshed. Three nights and four days has been the perfect time to hang here; any longer and I would have hired a car to explore more of the area and eat different food.

Nightly rates from £190 B&B. For more information and reservations, visit Octant hotels here. 

Images: Octant Évora or Susan Riley