Hi,

Have just got back from Carvoeiro after a gorgeous week there!

However, I thought I would let you know of some of the concerns we had whilst we were over there.

I'm not trying to cause alarm with these, but would like people to be wary. My friends and I were talking and agreed that we always seem to think that we're somehow safer on holiday and immune to things that we would always be on guard about at home"¦ not too sure why we think this, but it's true, we don't always take as much care.

Firstly, we were staying in a private apartment at Quinta do Paraiso. The apartment and grounds were lovely and I would definitely go back there again. But during the third night there my friend had his surf board, body board and bag stolen from outside the apartment. They should really have been inside, but to be honest, he didn't think much about it, and wouldn't have thought a thief would be interested as they're so big!! Also, they were hidden behind the wall of the balcony, and they weren't visible unless you were stood beside them. Someone must have either seen us carrying them back to the apartment, or had actually opened the gate, walked down the path of the apartment and had a good look round, which is slightly more worrying! This was all reported to the police and whilst we were at the station in the morning another couple came to report their camera had been stolen whilst they had been out for a meal the previous night. I spoke to some of the locals in the Monte Carvoeiro resort and it appears that there have been an increasing number of thefts around the area. One local family even had a gang of people climbing through the windows of their house whilst they were still in it! I'm sure these are still fairly rare occurrences, but please keep an eye on your things and make sure everything is locked up before you leave - we've definitely learnt from our mistake!!

My second concern is about the amount of people in the area offering us drugs. In one night whilst in the centre of Carvoeiro, we were offered drugs at least 5 times, with one guy following us around for a few minutes, seeing if we'd change our minds! Admittedly, we were a group of 4 in our mid-late twenties, and I very much doubt they would have offered if we were older or had children, but I had never come across this before in Portugal. Has anyone else found this? I still felt perfectly safe there, and would definitely go back, as I really love it there, but did find this a bit worrying. Maybe that's just the way things are now - which is a shame.

Laura