“Look dear, a lovely mamarracho!”

In a way, it’s a fairly typical Algarvian eyesore: one with a recent past, turned to dust. Only a few years ago, it would have been a centre of positive summer activity: families on holiday, couples in love, people having fun – and more importantly, a place that provided jobs and contributed to money flowing into the local economy. Well, that’s the way things work in the Algarve, isn’t it? Or at least that’s they way things used to work…

Later, we discovered that the romanticism of this sad, vacant building is still alive on the Internet! “Hotel Golfinho, located five minutes from the history centre of Lagos, benefits from a unique setting, less than 200 m from Praia D. Ana – one of the most stunning coves of the Algarve”!

And we found more poetry on a well-known reservations site “for the best low-cost hotels in the world”. It’s even possible to choose dates and place a reservation!

An estate agency in Lisbon has an online document dating from 2005 where it presents the building as being 14.793 square meters of constructed area, and gives some clues.

“It has been closed by its current owners, with the objective of approving a plan for modernisation. The architectural plan has already been fully approved, but final decisions will rest with the new owner”.

Who is no doubt hoping for better days – like everyone and everything else.

Yet the tourists who dawdled, gap-mouthed, in awe of such gargantuan monstrosity got us thinking.

Why not create a new niche-market: White Elephant Tourism? A route taking in hideous points of interest could be formulated, along with interviews with architects of “the ugliest building projects” and talks on the horrors of urbanism. Examples? No shortage of those! Who knows, it could really catch on?!