Journey 01 · Portugal
The Algarve Before the Umbrellas
May, mostly on foot
Published 23 May 2025 · Travelled 6–14 May 2025
- 7 moments
- 9 days
- 258 km
- Spring
- Portugal
- 37.0806° N, 8.6690° W
- Ponta da Piedade
- 09:10
- 19°C, clear, light wind
We walked out from Lagos before the tour boats started and stood on the cliff while the little skiffs threaded between the stacks below us. The water was so clear the boats looked like they were resting on their own shadows. My sister said it looked fake, and then took forty photographs of it.
- 37.1020° N, 8.6740° W
- Rua 25 de Abril, Lagos
- 10:40
By day two we had a rule: the first coffee is at the guesthouse, the second one is wherever the tray in the window looks best. This one came with a nata still warm enough to fog the glass case it had just left. I ate it too fast to photograph, so this is the second one.
the cinnamon is optional, the queue is not
- 37.0870° N, 8.4260° W
- 37.0870° N, 8.4260° W
- Benagil
- 15:25
- 22°C, clear
The boatman cut the engine just inside Benagil and let the swell push us around while the light moved on the ceiling. Twenty minutes later we were off Marinha, and the cliffs went from close and gold to wide and endless. Same coast, two completely different moods, one very smug boatman.
Overheard · Mercado Municipal de Lagos · 08:35
"These sardines, they are from today?" — "Senhora, they are from before you woke up." She bought a kilo. So did we, and we don't even have a kitchen here.
- 37.1260° N, 7.6480° W
- Tavira
- 13:05
- 25°C, hot, still
Two buses east and the coast calms down completely. Tavira is white walls, yellow trim and the sound of cutlery from inside dark doorways at lunchtime. I photographed this door and a woman watering plants above told me, in English, that the house was older than both of us together.
- 37.0850° N, 8.6680° W
- Praia do Camilo
- 17:30
- 21°C
The stairs to Praia do Camilo go down forever and the whole way you can see exactly why you are bothering. At the bottom the cove is barely bigger than a living room. We stayed until the shade swallowed our towels, then counted the steps back up. My sister got 214, I got 199, we agreed on nothing.
- Sagres
- 19:50
- 17°C, windy, gold
- Last frame
Last evening we took the bus out to Sagres, where Europe just stops. The cliffs went the colour of the nata pastry, which felt like the trip agreeing with itself. Nobody talks much out there. The wind does it for you.
- 37.0230° N, 8.9960° W
The route
7 stops
Journey completed
Nine days, seven stories
- Distance walked
- 61 km
- Frames exposed
- 412
- Pastéis de nata
- 11
- Beaches we had to ourselves
- 4
- Favourite moment
- The boatman cutting the engine inside the cave so we could hear the water
- Best food
- Grilled sardines in Tavira, at a table the waiter carried into the street for us
