The Algarve - Holiday and Travel Guide.
Algarve Beaches, Sightseeing, Touring, Photos and Walks Guides for The Algarve in Southern Portugal.
The Algarve has a fantastic and beautiful coastline with high cliffs, colourful rock formations as well as the "algarves" themselves and once you get a little away from the main holiday accommodation/hotel areas there are plenty of nice little beaches and coves to discover and enjoy.
The Algarve is just a few hours flying time from England and with the mild weather you can normally expect at
the bottom edge of this part of Europe Portugal's Algarve is a good all round
place for some holiday sunshine even in the Autumn and Winter. These mild weather conditions are of course why so many people travel out to The Algarve to play golf (there are plenty of really picturesque golf courses
right along the southern coastline).
The beaches along the south coast of The Algarve are really nice and extremely beautiful in
places with their colourful cliffs and rock formations - particularly the
beaches either side of Albufeira but they do tend to be quite busy. However for really magnificent beaches
with far less people around you need to take a trip out to the Algarve's Western Atlantic Coast.
Out on this coast some of the beaches occupy really huge coves but there are also plenty of smaller beaches too which are nestled in amongst the higher cliff areas. If you are a naturist and enjoy nude swimming and sunbathing and/or you are not too keen on crowded and organised beaches this is the area in Portugal to go too.
This South Atlantic coastline is really nice on the sea edge with spectacular
beaches and lovely cliffs and there are some really nice walks to be done along the cliff edges but you have to always try and ignore the
appalling amount of buildings which are often visible nearbye. Places like Portimao are terrible - the way the developers have been
allowed to build their hideous hotel scrapers etc. right around the estuary and beaches is
a shame. We spent some time looking around the Western
Atlantic side of the Algarve - on maps this area is shown as the Parque Natural.. and there are some truly lovely beaches along this coast -
varying from huge bays down to much smaller coves - around here you can easily have your own
-private- of beach.
Amazingly even here the building has started - with several small coastal villages having a nice 4 deep row of so-called "villas" around their perimeters - oh well.However if you travel inland things are different - with small villages scattered amongst the rolling hills -
quiet roads and lots of tracks and paths to walk and enjoy. Our Walks are described via menus which you can find on our Algarve Walks and Photos.
The information and holiday guides on our pages relates to our holiday on The Algarve during October 2006 - we stayed at Pateo which is perched just above Albufeira's Old Town.
Restaurants. We used the restaurants around the Square in the Old Town - there are plenty to chose from varying from Pasta and Pizza to so-called Indian to fish and steak orientated establishments. Generally the service was excellent and the amount of food actually on the plates was enourmous but we did find the food rather bland - i.e. just did not have any real go to it tastewise. The two Indian restaurants near the Square seemed to have no ambience and there was a distinct lack of the strong spicy smell of this type of food which you would normall expect. We did have a chicken curry and although described on the menu as hot and full of spice you could happily have given it to a 5 year old to eat - so lacking in any "Go". The house wines were also pretty poor but you could get a bottle of red wine for around 10 to 12 Euros which was drinkable. On average a main course followed by a sweet cost around 30 to 35 Euros for the two of us.
Transport. There was a local bus service running but we did not have need to use it - these local buses would take you to the outskirts of the town where they connect with longer distance buses which connect the main towns along the coast. Car Hire was easy but it really was worth looking around - we were offered a D class car (Clio/Saxo etc) varying from 450 Euros fully insured but with a 60 Euro damage clause to what we ended up with which was 280 Euros with no excess etc.(this was a 12 day hire). Taxis are plentiful - minumum charge during the day was 3.25 Euros and 3.90 Euros during the evening - as is normal with taxi drivers it seems, the driving was quite manic at times.
Timeshare Accommodations. Portugal's tourist mecca of Algarve is an ideal place to purchase timeshare. This warm seaside region calls vacationers from across the world, boasting gorgeous clean beaches, award-winning golf courses and unparalleled nightlife. And by purchasing timeshare on the resale market, you'll save up to 65% off original resort pricing.
Algarve's Roads. The roads we found to be pretty quiet even around the towns - there is a dual carriageway road which runs the length of the coastline and means you can get from A to B quite quickly. However the smaller roads have one fabulous distinction - often they are not signposted to anywhere or if they are then the signs are only visible once you actually get onto the required road. The maps are not that brilliant and helpful in some areas and it is easy to go off the wrong way - however generally the roads are very quiet which helps - it all adds to the fun. They do have a nice speed reduction system - instead of the incessant money grabbing speed cameras we suffer from in England, their system checks your speed in a restricted area and if you are going too fast the next set of lights a few hundred metres down the road will go red and stop you.
Weather in The Algarve. We can only describe it how it was during our holiday - we expected lots of sunshine and warm temperatures but this was not the case during our two weeks in October - the first couple of days were not bad but we subsequently had several really foggy days, quite a few days where it rained, several days with thunderstorms and the humidity was really high and generally over the fortnight there was heavy cloud and the constant threat of rain. The evenings were also pretty cool and it was not unusual to see people wearing jackets or anoraks during the mid-evening. On return to England we checked the 10 day forecast and rain and thunderstorms etc. were still shown - maybe October 2006 was just a bad year.
As
mentioned getting around is pretty straightforward if you hire a car - the
Southern Coastal main road ends up by the Spanish Border at one
end - here you might like to visit the Castro Marim Wildlife Saltpans area -
loads of birds like storks, herons and flamingos reside there.
The saltpans themselves are still being worked so are very active and you can watch the salt being gathered by
what looks like quite peculiar looking scrapers and diggers etc.
We enjoy walking whilst on holiday and The Algarve certainly does offer plenty of opportunities for this - not only on the Algarves Western and Southern coasts but perhaps even better are the walks available when you travel further inland. We have a whole series of Algarve Holiday Guides, Walks and Photos which you may care to take a look at - menus to them are below. These pages are packed with photographs from around The Algarve so even if you are not too interested in walking and hiking the pages do show various locations all round the Province which you might find of interest to visit whilst on holiday in Southern Portugal.
These are our Algarve Topics:-
We are very fond of travelling about the world and we have created other travel websites which
may be of interest:-
Cyprus Holiday Guides Includes Troodos
and Pafos - Cyprus travel and holiday guides
India - Goa and the Golden
Triangle holidays in India and touring Indian Tombs Temples and Forts
Touring North and South Islands of New Zealand - about holidays and travelling in
New Zealand
Greek Islands Holidays + Sightseeing
in Athens Many Greek Islands are covered on our Greece Holiday and Travel Guides - also a topic on touring
Athens
Touring Hong Kong, Bali, Singapore, Bangkok and Cambodia (Siem Reap,
Angkor Wat etc and Phnom Penh) - holiday and travel guides in the Far East
Egypt Vacation and Touring Tombs
and Temples
Egypt - Sharm el
Sheikh, Luxor, Cairo and Aswan holiday guides.
England - walks, churches canals,
nature England's wildflowers,
churches, canals and many walks to enjoy if visiting England.
Fuerteventura, Lanzarote and Gran Canaria Holiday Guides
Holiday Guides for The Canary Islands
Touring, Holidays and Travel in Vietnam.
Vietnam Touring Guides
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External Links
Sunflower Books There is a Sunflower edition covering The Algarve - very much worth while having.