Algarve news and information portal - AlgarveMais

The ‘Real’ Hotel chain will open the first five star hotel in Olhão council in May 2010, the hotel group announced this week. The Real Marina Hotel and Spa, and the Real Marina Residence are a €46million investment by the hotel chain in the Algarve. With views overlooking the Ria Formosa, these are the first developments in line with the project which seeks to completely renovate the Olhão riverside area.

FIESA is a mega exhibition of sculpture in sand held since 2003 in Pera, Algarve. The festival is unique in the Iberian Peninsula and is considered the largest festival of sand sculpture in the world by the size of its sculptures and the area they occupy. In each new edition the exhibition is devoted to a different theme. This year an international team of 60 sculptors, specialized in sand sculpture, transform fifteen thousand square meters of area and thirty-five thousand tons of sand in to FIESA 2009.

The Algarvean city of Portimão, which is home to one of Europe’s fastest ‘up and coming’ cruise ports, will be featured at the European Seatrade Exhibition, which will take place in Hamburg from 15th – 17th September, in Hamburg, Germany, and is the largest event of its kind this side of the Atlantic. This cements Portimão’s growing profile as an important destination on the international cruise circuit, and will feature alongside other Portuguese ports such as Lisbon, Leixões and the Azores.

The construction of Portimão’s future sports complex is now underway as Grupo Lena and the Council of Portimão celebrated the laying of the first stone at the 400,000m² plot of land, where the state-of-the-art sports complex is to be built. Representing a €150 million investment, the future sports complex will have an Olympic size indoor swimming pool, a multi-purpose sports pavilion, a Municipal football stadium, a residential area, a botanical garden and many more features, making this one of Portimão’s most ambitious projects so far.