Portugal’s Algarve region is home to some of the most beautiful beaches we have ever seen. Our four nights here have been the vacation within our vacation and provided a chance to recharge our batteries in advance of our time in Lisbon.
We stayed in Salema, a lower key town on the Algarve about Midway between Lagos and Sagres. Oddly enough, this beachiest of our stops saw the cloudiest and coolest weather of our entire trip.
With three full days, the question was which beaches to spend our time at. We chose the following:
Day 1 – We opted to stay in Salema. The west side beach is less crowded and contains some incredible rock piles in beautiful reds and golds. These were so impressive that I spent some time working on a plein aire painting. With the wind, I only got it started but took photos that will help me finish it when we get home.
Day 2: With a cool and cloudy day we chose to go to Sagres, the “end of the world” back in the days of Henry the Navigator who founded a naval school here. The fortress costs €3 to get in. Once in, we spent a couple of hours hiking around the cape. Beautiful scenery and we met a couple of fishermen who dropped their lines over the cliff to get their catch. The man I spoke with showed me his catch of two impressive fish. From Sagres we went to Praia da Bordeira just up the coast to the north and rated a top ten Algarve beach by Lonely Planet. This is surfer territory as the waves in the Atlantic are bigger than on the southern coast. Very cool!
Day 3: Best weather of our Algarve stay. We went for the beauty down in Lagos. Ponta da Piedade is phenomenal! This is where you find beautiful limestone rock formations and grottoes. You start up high on the cliffs looking down on the rocks and all the boat traffic. Then you hike down (lots of stairs) where you can get in a small fishing boat for a tour of the grottoes. It’s about a 35 minute ride costing €20. We had to duck to go into one of the grottoes. The water color in some places is amazing. In all you stop at about a dozen or so gtottoes or named rock formations. It was perfect!
From there we went up the road to Praia da Dona Ana another top ten Algarve beach according to Lonely Planet. They were right! We found a little secluded area of this beach. Secluded because you can’t easily get to it. Your choices are to climb up and down some rocks and the crawl through a small hole in the rock or to go in the water and walk around the cliff hoping the water isn’t too deep so your stuff doesn’t get wet. We opted for the latter and, thankfully, the water never got above four feet or so and it wasn’t too wavy either. Lucky for us the tide started to go out when we were ready to leave so the water was about a foot shallower. Fantastic follow-up to the grotto tour!
We loved the Algarve! Next up: Lisbon where we will see Portugese bullfighting.
