Five days in the Algarve (the south of Portugal)!

After an awesome ten days in Norway and a super fun weekend with Poops in Oslo, it was time to head to the sixth country on our around-the-world adventure, Portugal!

I had been to Lisbon before and Damian had been to a bunch of the country, but we were excited to return and experience it together. And, the cherry on top was that Damian’s sister, Daniella, and her husband, Ian, were joining us for a good part of it. Yippee!

Day 1: Arriving at Monte Santo Resort and having fun in the pool!

Damian and I flew into Lisbon from Oslo late at night Sunday and stayed at the airport hotel. It was a little cray because a bunch of flights were cancelled so lots of people were trying to book rooms, but all ended well. We got a good night’s sleep and when we woke up in the morning, Daniella and Ian had arrived! We gave quick hugs, ate breakfast and got on the road for the ~2.5 hour drive to the Algarve.

We chose the Monte Santo Resort as our homebase for this part of the trip and it was a great choice. We had an awesome two-bedroom, two-bathroom villa, with a big living room, kitchen, dining area and patio. And, not only was there a big pool for everyone, but we also had a little pool area of our own for our mini-area of villas.

We also chose the resort because it is centrally located on the southern coast of Portugal (aka the Algarve), which made is easy to access different areas. Anyway, after getting to the resort we ate some lunch, checked into the room and then had some fun in the pool. The boys couldn’t resist the pool floats that were around, and Daniella and I had a blast laughing at their antics. Also, where were all these cool pool floats when we were younger??

Day 2: Marinha beach

The next day we were ready to hit the beach! The Algarve is famous for its beaches and so on the first day we decided to head to one of the most famous ones, Marinha beach. I have to mention that we were in the Algarve during August, which is peak season (and not just peak, but like peak peak peak season), so it was crowded. We made the best of it, but be forewarned in case you are planning your own trip!

Marinha beach was only about 15 minutes away from the hotel and as soon as we got there we saw lots and lots of cars parked in the “lots” and on the street. Damian did some awesome maneuvering and got us a great spot! We then walked down the stairs to get to the beach (not hard at all) and phew, it was crowded! So we decided to stop and have lunch first at the little beach restaurant.

While the food was nothing to write home about it was fun to have an option right there. After that we headed down to the beach and it really was beautiful! The beach itself has pretty blue-green water and the sand backs right up into these huge golden cliffs. Stunning!

The beach isn’t huge, but you can go walking to the west and climb over some rocks for more stunning views and a little less crowdedness. This beach really reminded us a lot of our drive and the beaches we saw on the Great Ocean Road in Australia (a trip I still have to write about one day!).

Daniella and Ian also went exploring east and found a fun little cave to walk through. And when they got to the other side there was another small beach and it was even less crowded (probably due to the fact that you had to climb a little to get there). We had fun here taking pictures, playing a dice game and swimming in the water!

As the sun started to set we started to get cold so we climbed back through the cave and up the steps to our car. We took one last look at Marinha beach and rounded out a great day in the Algarve!

Day 3: Cabo St Vicente, Sagres and Figueira beach!

The next day we decided to head to the western part of the Algarve! Make sure to follow along here, because we did a lot on this day!

We started out by heading to Cabo San Vicente, which is a cliff jutting out into the ocean, and is the southwestern most point of Europe. There is a lighthouse at the point, which was built in 1846 and has lights that can be seen for 60 kilometers! It was super foggy when we were there, so you could tell the lighthouse was much needed.

There were also some really fun rocky cliff areas to walk around and we spent a bunch of time doing that. There aren’t barriers or anything, because the Portuguese point of view is that if you are dumb enough to do something stupid, then you should have to live with (aka suffer from) the consequences. And, I have to say, I dig it.

The four of us also turned into total goobers and got obsessed with doing these dorky panoramic shots where we are in them multiple times. My favorite is the one below – there is no photoshopping here guys, just a lot of pano skill! Come one, admit it, you are impressed.

After that we hopped into the car to drive to the fort at Sagres, which was only about 15 minutes away. The fort was built in the 1400s to protect from African invaders and it’s pretty neat since three of the sides are protected by the sea cliffs and only the fourth side had to have a wall built.

A lot of the guidebooks and sites kind of poo-poo on this fort, saying that it is too simple and that there isn’t much to see, but that’s one of the things I kind of liked the most about it. It’s pretty big and you can just wander around and enjoy the scenery and the water. Some people were being crazy and going out onto cliff edges even where it was explicitly said to be unstable, but luckily we didn’t see anyone fall!

And fine, fine, we couldn’t help ourselves, we just had to do our silly (amazing) panoramic-mania picture again!

After that we were totally starving so we had a good late lunch and headed to our last stop of the day – Figueira beach (praia da Figueira). This beach ended up being my favorite of our time in the Algarve!

Getting to Figueira beach was a bit of an adventure, as it required some off-road driving (where the maps weren’t totally reliable) and then about a 15-minute hike in to the beach. But, it was worth it. I think because it’s a bit of a hassle to get to, fewer people go there, which I appreciated. We just hung out, swam, read and went on walks. It was my kind of beach outing!

Day 4: Caves at Benagil beach and chilling and SUP-ing at Gale beach!

The next day we decided to hit up one of the most famous beaches in the Algarve – Benagil beach (or Praia da Benagil). We saw signs for this beach all around our drives in the Algarve, advertising for a famous cave that is right off it. It looked pretty beautiful so we decided to check it out.

When we got there the beach itself was pretty crowded. It’s a small beach and so there were people and blanket and umbrellas taking up almost every available inch. We decided to just drop our stuff off in a corner and figure out how to get to the caves.

The options to get to the caves are to swim, to take a boat, to kayak or to paddleboard. Given our love for swimming tours and that the cave was literally a 200m swim away we decided to do that. And folks, we would recommend that to anyone – it was beautiful and fun!

With the boats you don’t get to get out and actually walk around the caves and with the other options it is really crowded so you are nervous about hitting people. And besides, swimming is the best! Anyway, even with the crowds, the cave itself and the views in it were stunning!

On the swim back we found a big rock in the water that we thought would be fun to climb and take pictures off of. Well, it was, but since the waves were pretty strong most of the pictures ended up being quite silly. Which, I guess, might be the best kind?

We ended our time at Benagil by walking on the top of the cliffs, where you could see the top of the hole that you see when you are in the cave, and some more beautiful cliff and sea views!

Phew, as if that wasn’t enough for one day, we decided to hit up one more beach on our way home. We went to Gale beach (Praia da Gale) and since it was a little later in the day it was also a little less crowded, which we appreciated. Damian, Daniella and Ian did a little bit of stand-up paddleboarding, while I relaxed and read. It was a great way to end the day!

Day 5: Boat tour on the Rio Formosa, Olhão and silly fun time!

I know, I know, this is a long post with a lot of pictures. But, to be fair, we did a lot of things and I warned you at the top! Not to worry though, we are in the home stretch. This was our last full day in the Algarve.

We decided to head to an area called Rio Formosa Natural Park. It is a unique climate system in the east of the Algarve and so we thought we’d check it out!

We had also decided to be wild and just “wing it”. So we showed up to the port in Faro and talked to the tour operators and then decided what to do (vs. booking before). We were wild, I know. We decided to do a boat tour that would take about three hours and take us to two different islands, with a nature guide as our driver, sweet!

As we drove out of the marina the guide told us about the different types of bird and marine life that exist in the Rio Formosa, and handily also supplied us with binoculars. It was really neat!

We also stopped at two islands – Ilha Deserta and Ilha Farol. Ilha Deserta was smaller and mostly only had day-trippers. There is one guy that lives on the island full time, while his wife lives in the city of Faro. Hey, if it works, it works!

Ilha Farol was bigger and it definitely seemed like a fun summer weekend or summer week locale. If we had more time in the Algarve it would have been really fun to rent one of the cute houses on this island for a few days and just walk around, chill on the beach and do some SUP-ing. It really is the sweet beach life on Ilha Farol!

We spent about an hour on the island and then our quick little tour was over! So we hopped back on the boat and headed back to the marina in Faro.

Our boat captain was from the town of Olhão, which was nearby, so we decided to stop by there for lunch. We had some delicious tapas and then headed back for out last night at the resort.

We ended up playing in our private pool area for a long time, doing silly pool float races, playing monkey in the middle and trying our hardest to volley a ball one hundred times without dropping it (sadly we failed).

Day 6: Futsal Masters Championship and tchau Algarve!

And, all of a sudden, we had made it to our departing day! We ended our time in the Algarve heading to the Futsal Masters Cup. Futsal is indoor soccer, played on a smaller court and with only five players on the court per team. It was fun to go to a more local sports event and I’ll write more about it soon!

After that we were off! We were headed to spend two days at a cute little AirBnB in the countryside, which I can’t wait to share with you next. And a final ps – thanks to Ian and Daniella for some of the pics in this post!