Category: Blog

By late August, the summer has a feel to it. There’s still heat, still blue sky, still the long Algarve evenings. But there’s also a sense – just beginning – that things are shifting. School is on the horizon somewhere. Families are starting to count down days. The atmosphere changes slightly, becomes a little more deliberate.

This is when Eden’s late-summer evenings are at their most valuable. The course is still open around midnight into early September, which means you have until the very last days of summer to do the night golf under the stars in the tropical garden. The pool sessions are still warm and the garden is still in full growth. The restaurant terrace still gives you everything that a summer evening on the Algarve coast should.

If you’re planning a last proper day at Eden before heading home, late August is the time to do it properly. The morning session at the pool, the afternoon golf, drinks in the courtyard as the sun goes down, and dinner on the terrace, followed by some fun games on the TrackMan golf simulator.

Make the booking. End the summer on a good note.

And if you’re one of the visitors who comes back to Alvor every year (as many people do), you’ll already know that the late-August version of Eden has a particular quality to it. The crowds are still there, but just beginning to thin. The venue has hit its summer stride. The staff know what they’re doing. Everything works.

Not everyone who walks into Eden’s TrackMan simulator room is looking to play 18 virtual holes at St Andrews. Some people want something quicker, more competitive, and accessible to people who don’t know what their handicap is — because they’ve never had one.

The games built into TrackMan are the answer to that.

Bull’s eye: hit the target on the screen. The target is at various distances, and you’re trying to land the ball as close to the centre as possible. The closer you are, the higher your score. This sounds simple and is simple, but the physics of the simulator, which reads your actual swing and plays the actual ball flight, means that the gap between “hit something roughly in that direction” and “actually hit the target” is entertaining to discover.

Closest to the pin: multiple players take turns hitting toward a virtual pin. Whoever gets closest wins the hole. This is how putting competitions work and it’s also how arguments at Eden’s simulator room work, in the most enjoyable sense.

Neither of these games requires golf knowledge. They require the ability to hold a club, swing it, and have opinions about whether your shot was better than everyone else’s. That’s accessible to almost everyone.

For actual golfers, these games are warm-up exercises or practice tools: you can work on your iron accuracy, your wedge game, your approach shot consistency, and get real data back from the TrackMan system on each attempt.

The driving range function is there too… pure hitting, with shot data on every ball. For golfers who play the Algarve courses and want to work on something specific without committing to another full round, the simulator is a legitimate practice environment.

Booking is advisable (see below). The simulator room is air-conditioned and makes for an excellent midday or early-afternoon option when the heat outside is peaking.

Golf Simulator Rental

August 15th is the Feast of the Assumption – a public holiday in Portugal and across much of southern Europe. For visitors to the Algarve, it’s a day when Portuguese life slows down, gatherings happen, and the atmosphere in villages like Alvor takes on a particular festive warmth.

For those with the day free, it’s also one of the best days to make a proper occasion of an Eden visit – because Eden is open, even on public holidays. The evenings are long and warm, and there’s a kind of energy in the air that makes activities feel more celebratory than they would on a Tuesday.

Alvor itself tends to mark the day with a local atmosphere worth walking through; The village streets, the church area, the estuary. The day has a holiday-within-a-holiday quality.

For the afternoon and evening, Eden fits well. The tropical garden is in its full August splendour. The pool is open for a half-day session from 2pm if you want to cap off the afternoon in warm water. The mini golf course, lit up for the evening, is the kind of thing to do when you want to extend a good day rather than let it end.

And then dinner on the terrace — because Assumption Day calls for a table outside, something local in a glass, and an evening that doesn’t rush.

Eden is open daily. On a public holiday in peak August, the venue gets busy, particularly in the evening. Dinner reservations are essential. The rest will take care of itself.