I can give you a couple of pointers.

The marina at Lagos is only a few minutes walk from the town, on the other side of the river via a footbridge. There is a very big beach (called Meia Praia) about half a mile from the marina area. This stretches a long way along that part of the coast. That area is completely flat.

The town itself has only a tiny beach as most of it is alongside the river. The very old part town is on a hill above the river, but it has expanded down towards the river so there are places to stay in the flat bits as well as higher up. There is a fairly small pedestrianised area in the middle where a lot of the restaurants etc can be found.

Outside of town to the south and west, a mile or two out from the centre, are small beaches such as Dona Ana and Porto do Mos. These are modern tourist resorts developed around little coves. The actual beach at Dona Ana is small but perfectly formed and can only be reached by steep flights of steps.

As modern resorts, these areas have their own small collection of bars and restaurants. There is a good bus service and the tourist 'train' connecting these areas with the main part of town. The buses run until midnight in July and August.

Lagos is not quite as frenetic as the bigger resorts such as Albufeira and Praia da Rocha and has a good reputation. The Meia Praia area is getting to be a bit concrete and glass and losing some of its appeal in my opinion, but once on the beach you can easily forget that.

I hope that helps get you started.

Try this site for information. Personally, apart from the 2 hour coach ride from faro, Lagos is my favourite haunt in PT.
http://www.simplylagos.com/

Thank you Cubsur for the information it makes me understand more the layout of Lagos.I liked some apartments at the Marina but thought they may be too far away from town but it doesn't seem so.
Thank you Dan_Cheng for the website the maps on it are very useful.
Lagos sounds like just the kind of place we would love, and there seems to be lot to see and do so I'm going to keep looking for apartments.

The apartments on the Marina complex are ideally placed in that they're only a ten minute stroll, along the pleasant promenade, from the town centre and a similar distance from the beautiful Meia Praia beach. There is a good choice of bars and restaurants actually on the Marina for those times when you don't fancy a walk into town and the tourist 'Road Train', which will get you out to Dona Ana beach and Ponta da Piedade beyond, has it's terminus alongside the Marina. Added to that you have all the water-borne activities- barbecue and sunset cruises, game fishing and dolphin safaris - right on your doorstep, and the railway and bus stations are two and five minutes away respectively.
Just one caveat; be absolutely sure that the apartment you choose is on the Marina itself as apartments advertised as being on the Marina Park are considerably further away from town and up a fairly substantial hill.

We stayed at the Marina Club (different from Marina Park, and I think the Marina Park may have subsequently been re-named, so check accommodation details carefully) a few years ago which we felt was well located and was suitable for us as it had its own pool.

We were able to walk into the main part of the town for meals of an evening. In July and August it's a bit of a nightmare finding parking, and wouldn't imagine its got any better unless they have built more car parks, so if you want to eat and drink out each night it is good to be within ten mins or so walk.

The Marina Park has been renamed The Vitasol Park

Thanks for your advice ,we have found an apartment within the town that we like, we won't have a pool but there's a large roof terrace for sun bathing and we would like to be right in the middle of things for the evening, we can always go to beaches to swim and thinking of hiring a car for a few days to sight see.Just waiting to hear from apartment owner if its free for our dates., and if not its back to the drawing board. I did like the Marina but I think staying in town would be a real change for us. Any other advice is gratefully received thanks again.

There are two new paid carparks - on the Avenida (town waterfront) and behind the town walls (old town).

There is also free parking behind the marina.

Are you going to be hiring a car for the whole holiday, it will make your choice of accommodation much wider.

Sent off e mails to a few apartments in the town but no replies of yet.I have saw an apartment which says "in the heart of Lagos Marina" and although it has no pool you have use of the pool at the Marina Club ,does anyone know if the Marina Club is next door to the apartments or further away ,or has anyone stayed here and used the Marina club pool? thanks

Hi Anne

It's difficult to say if the apartment will be exactly next to the Marina Club itself. Even the Marina Club seems to have a phase one which I think was the aparthotel itself and Marina Club II and I think there was a third phase as well.

Plus there are various other marina view apartments. I seem to remember Glynis (who is the Senior Admin on here) staying in one some years ago that she hired privately, as she pmed me the details.

Realistically though I would think that you wouldn't be more than 5 mins from the pool.

Regarding using the Marina club pool, just wanted to point out that if you go during July and August the pool area gets pretty busy, as I think lots of the private apartments have a 'pool pass arangement' with the club. Just didn't want you to expect a huge choice of sunbeds and lots of open grassy spaces. Probably OK during June/Sept and out out of season. It does attract families.

Hi Doepsmc, thanks for your reply, I guessed that the marina club pool would be pretty busy, there seems to be a lot of different complexes on the marina ,this one overlooks the lake with swans on it ,there is a large balcony with sunbeds so would probably do most of our sunbathing there. We have been torn between staying in town or on the marina, the apartments on the marina do seem nicer inside and it doesn't really seem far to walk into the town at night so beginning to think I would like the marina apartment.
We usually do a two centre holiday in Turkey so to stay in the one place for two weeks I really want to be sure I'm in the right place.Apart from that I can't wait to visit Lagos it sounds as if there is so much to do there.

this one overlooks the lake with swans on it

... less than a minute from the main pool.

Great stuff!!! Thanks Sagres

To be honest Anne you will probably be fine in any of the Marina apartments. I haven't been there for (i think) it's three years and there was a fair bit of building work going on, but Sagres will have a more up to date view.

I was glad I chose the Marina Club as it was an eastablished accommodation and we had no problems from building works, although I paid extra for a pool view, so I didn't get any nasty suprises. It probably wouldn't have bothered me about the sight of construction work, but I would have been bothered about noise and not being able to sleep.

The nights we ate in Lagos we just walked into the town across the little bridge, the Marina Club has it's own car park so we left our car there most nights.

There are loads of bars and reastaurants to chose from, you will be spoilt for choice, much of the food we had was excellent.

The year prior to and the year following we went to Turkey - Olu Deniz. It's very different in Lagos much more laid back and no hassle from vendors etc so you don't feel under huge amounts of pressure to go in restaurants/bars like you are put under in Turkey. Oh and everything in shops is priced so no haggling thank goodness.

The beaches are better in the Algarve but in the west it can be breezy and of course the sea is much colder than in Turkey. We were AI in Turkey but we ate out a few times, OD is expensive for Turkey so didn't notice much difference in costs but then I have never been to cheap places like Marmaris or Gumbet as yet.

If it's still in business, there is a medium size supermarket within walking distance of the Marina called Pingo Doce, where you can get all your needs to stock up your apartment fridge/freezer, good wine selection, if you want to buy bottles to drink on the balciony. We felt no need to go anywhere else and just topped up every 3 or 4 days or if we were taking picnics to the beaches (we have kids - teens).

If you are there for two weeks you will probably be able to do a couple of days out and from what I remember there are places in the town that do organised trips, although as we had a car we got about under our own steam.

Doe

Besides the Marina Club there is one other set of apartments on the Marina that has it's own pool (this was where I stayed in the summer), can't remember the name of the apartments but can dig them out if anyone wants the name. As has been described the other apartment complexes use the marina club pool via passes (and members of the public can actually pay to use for the day I believe). The pingo doce supermarket was up and running (and busy in the summer). I thought the marina was a great place to stay and the walk into town in the evening was very pleasant

Thanks everyone for all the advice I will take heed of them all, will definately go to the marina to stay.Thanks for the help in making me decide.

I'm sure you will enjoy it. If of an evening you dont feel like walking across the small bridge into town there are also some restaurants round the Marina.

We found a little place for breakfast, where we had coffee, large fresh jucice, crossiant, french bread & preserves each morning for about 4 Euros. It was lovely sitting in the sun for an hour at 8am watching all the posh folk get their yatchs ready for the day and wishing it was us :rofl, whist our teens were in the apartment trying to stir themselves into life.

Enjoy, Doe

Here's the apartment mentioned that we stayed in. It too was near the lake with the swans but had it's own pool.

http://www.holiday-rentals.co.uk/p93503

Ours was a 2 bedroomed apt but if you're looking for a 1 bedroomed then Google Dom Manuel apartments Lagos as it can be difficult to find those exact apartments without the name. There are a couple of similar complexes in the area with a pool so if you find anything let us know and we can take a look for you.