Imani Country House

Very quiet area I would only recommend to upgrade the mattress. Staff was wonderful.

Portugal and it's people are gentle and kind. We have visited many times and love it north to south. Tucked away at the end of a bumpy dirt road is a real gem. Only 7 rooms - ours even had a wood burning stove (yes it did). More oranges than you could eat in a lifetime and so quiet at night you can hear them grow. This location is worthy of your time and is a great value if slow and easy is your mission. Go with the flow here - take a walk - eat an orange - meet a burro - say hello to your partner. We did enjoy ourselves...

We choose to stay here after receiving a recommendation, we were advised that the welcome is very warm with a welcome drink. Reception was indeed very friendly, no welcome drink was offered. The room is large and decorated in a special design way, and so is the bathroom, which is very unpractical. A stand alone sink with no area to put down your toothbrush or hairdryer. The shower is very large, but you have to put shampoo bottles and soap on the floor, no rack anywhere. And in a hotel pretending to be luxurious, the bathroom carpet was Ikea. If you wish to have dinner, choice must be made before 6.00 PM, which I can appreciate in a hotel with only 7 rooms. But, upon arrival, you must also decide what you want to eat for breakfast. One of the items we selected was local cheese, and then at breakfast it was not there because they were out of local cheese ! On our first day, the restroom in the restaurant had paper on the floor, and 3 days later the same paper was still on the floor. I also purposely left a candy wrapper on the floor in my room, and sure enough, it was never removed. We had a bottle of wine on our terrace and left the wine cooler on our (accessible) terrace table, and it was not removed. When booking the room on the website, it mentions Hermès amenities. The amenities in the room were Clarins, not Hermès. Nothing wrong with Clarins, but why lie on the website ? The only access to the hotel is via a 2 mile long dirt road. It was very difficult with our sports car. This should be mentioned on the hotel's website. Upon check in, we were asked to pay the room. They refused to take American Express. Upon check out when paying the extras, another person at the reception desk took American Express without a problem. This hotel is not at all what it pretends to be. No class at all, despite its potential. The owner of this hotel should not be in the hospitality business, he has no idea how to run a hotel and make guests feel at home. It is very obvious for hotel guests that there is not enough staff and they all have too many jobs to do at the same time. Having said this, the hotel staff are all, without exception, very friendly and welcome.