Areias do Seixo

Gonçalo Alves and Marta Fonseca spent eight years turning an abandoned chicken farm on the Costa de Prata into a hotel. They wanted, by their own account, a big house to share with people, and that is more or less what they built.

It sits behind the dunes about forty-five minutes north of Lisbon, low and modern from the outside, and entirely unlike a modern hotel within. The interiors have the feel of a well-travelled flea market: bedding, rugs and light fittings brought from Morocco and India, beds framed in driftwood, fireplaces suspended from the ceiling, antique dishes, Moroccan candleholders on chunky wooden tables in the restaurant.

There are fourteen rooms and villas, each decorated individually, several with floor-to-ceiling windows facing the lawn and the Atlantic beyond. Some have their own fireplace and sunken bath.

The kitchen works largely from the hotel's own rooftop garden. There is a shop off the restaurant that reads like a stylish general store, selling local produce, the treatments used in the spa, and a good deal of what is on display around the building, so if you like something you can generally buy it.

The nightly bonfire is the part people either love or avoid. Most evenings the owners light a fire on their stretch of coast, pour wine and put on traditional folk music, and because there are only fourteen rooms it stays a small gathering rather than an event. If you would rather not, you take a glass back to your own fireplace.

The hotel is Green Key certified, with electric vehicle charging, a heated pool, sauna, Turkish bath and jacuzzi. Horse riding on the beach and fishing can be arranged.

Porto Novo and Santa Cruz beaches are five to seven minutes by car. Lisbon airport is around an hour.