We british love the Algarve with its year-round sunshine, its Anglophile leanings and more golf courses than you can shake a mashie niblick at.

The problem is that so many of us buy into this southern European dream that it can seem more like Bournemouth than Albufeira at times. Everywhere you look there are menus, signs and newspapers in English, and the estate agents' windows are full of front-line golf villas and low rise apartment blocks within easy reach of an authentic Irish pub or an Asian restaurant.