Sun and sea are undoubtedly a great reason for visiting the Algarve.
But there’s much more to be found here than just the coastal Algarve with its golden sandy beaches.
These brief guides give you six good reasons to set off in discovery of the Algarve countryside.Six guides and six tours taking you all around the other Algarve.
Credits: Região de Turismo do Algarve
Percorremos as Rotas do Infante D. Henrique entre arribas, falésias, dunas, areais sem fim e um imenso mar. É "o fim do mundo" no coração do Parque Natural do Sudoeste Alentejano e Costa Vicentina.
The taste of the sea and the flavour of the land.
Goose barnacles, beans and sweet potato. Among the pine-groves and bushes, climb up slopes of little white houses, and enter small churches and local museums.
Journeys between thyme bushes, cistus gums, carob trees and cork oaks, enjoying the hospitality of the people, around carob or bran bread, “medronho” (firewater) and “chouriço” (sausage).
You can admire the local arts and crafts in leather, copper, clay or linen. Set off and discover castles and walls, Roman bridges, churches, dams and brooks, springs that once powered mills and watermills. And lookout points perched on great rocks.
Springs and brooks gush out from every corner of the “Sintra of the Algarve”, in a game of light and shadow. Relax in the thermal baths or next to age-old trees, and pass along calm and revitalising pathways. Take delight in the tastes of the Serra: sausages, honey and “medronho” firewater.
Head round peaks and mountains that take you down into welcoming valleys filled with fertile and flourishing beauty. Up above, the mountain peak of Fóia is a natural lookout point over the Algarve and the Alentejo.
Enter the “other” Algarve, one filled with genuine people, traditional arts and excellent cuisine. The pure air carries the sweet aroma of cistus gum and rosemary. You can hear the sound of brooks babbling and here and there people at their daily toil.
You can admire the ovens, the whitewashed walls and the traditional stone benches. You can relive ancient history in the museums and the lost arts (and techniques). All that remains is to try out the cheese, the wine, the local spirit, the sausages, the bread and the “filhós” fried pastries.
This trip leads to the discovery of nature in its truest and purest form, which is expressed in the landscape, in the customs and in its people.
Discover water and wind mills, enter into a world of large and small dams and many magnificent brooks. The rural world can be remembered in several museums. And if you enjoy evidence from a rich archaeological, metallurgic and natural heritage, then this is the right route for you.
With the great river of the south as your guide journey from Castro Marim to Afonso Vicente. Through marshlands, valleys and dams in a landscape in which the River Guadiana appears at each curve.
Delight in river beaches, delicious sea lamprey, and the simplicity of cane basketry. Discover the rural architecture as you enter each village, and experience age-old remains from the Neolithic period to the Phoenician, Roman or Arab eras.
