Madeleine was not an abandoned child, but her location at the Ocean Club in Praia da Luz, evidently, made her more accessible than the average child.
The OC would be an ideal place for someone looking for a child: many children are present and grouped in specific areas (bit like a school playground); there us public access to the complex, which allows easy observability of the children and the complex itself, along with parents' routines; parents are occupied in their activities and in 'holiday mode', therefore not as vigilant with regard to security as they would be at home, and generally not as aware or observant or attuned to anomalies.
It would also be readily observable, as we have discussed, that there were long periods of time when children were apart from their parents. During the day, children were with often in play groups or with nannies, whom generally speaking even if very well trained do not provide the instinctive levels of vigilance of a parent. And at night, parents' social routines would probably be freer than at home.
As Anne says, a perpetrator still has to worry about being investigated. But as we have also discussed before, it is well documented that criminals often go to a sleepy place with only a provincial police presence at hand, in the hope of having an easier ride.
Perhaps globally it would have been better for someone planning an abduction to take a child from a war-torn or third world area where their actions would not ave been followed up.
But if an abductor was European, it would have been easier on balance to operate closer to home. In the European context, PdL, relatively speaking, is extremely quiet and remote and affords many opportunities for an abductor that many other places would not.
