Palatial thrills in Portugal

The bustling seaside town of Alvor, on Portugal’s Algarve coast, is the perfect place to holiday in splendid style and isolation.

The bustling seaside town of Alvor, on Portugal’s Algarve coast, is the perfect place to holiday in splendid style and isolation.

When I was a child, RTE ran a menacing advertisement about paranoia and the sense of being socially ostracised. It was akin to a short film directed as a nixer by Roman Polanski while taking a break from the less fear-inducing Rosemary’s Baby.

It involved a woman, who had not paid her ...