Lagos

A flight of 182 steps under the lighthouse drops to a waterline of arches and stacks. Small boats thread between the rocks, though at high tide the lower caves are closed to them.

Cliffs wrap a beach where the rock runs on under the surface and splits the water into two colours. After three in the afternoon the cliff shadow covers half the sand.

A round hole in the roof drops a column of light straight onto the sand inside. Swimming in has been barred since 2024, so entry is by boat or kayak.

Over 4km of straight sand spreads people out in a way the cliff beaches cannot. A westerly comes in during the afternoon, which is why kitesurfing lessons gather at this end.

A small museum stands where the first slave sale in Europe was held in 1444. Under the arches it lays out, in documents and maps, how people were priced and sold.

A seventeenth century work guarding the harbour mouth, reached over one narrow bridge. The inside is small enough for twenty minutes, and the wall looks straight down on the boats coming and going.

The outside is plain white, and the door opens on interior walls covered in gilded carving. The work was redone after the earthquake of the eighteenth century, so the grain of it shifts from wall to wall.

Channels of water cut the grounds into small islands where monkeys and lemurs are left loose. The enclosures sit low enough for children to meet them at eye level, and a full round takes two hours.

Two hundred wooden steps drop to a pair of coves joined by a tunnel through the rock. The second cove goes under as the tide comes in, so keep an eye on the time.

Half an hour by road brings you to a flat headland whose fort is tied to a school of navigation. The wind blows hard enough that anglers rope their gear down.

A small strand hidden under the cliffs between the old town and Dona Ana beach. Steep steps lead down from the clifftop path, and ochre rock pillars split the sand into bays. Quieter than Dona Ana next door, it is a pick for a morning swim.

A long beach beneath tall cliffs where Lagos peters out westward. Unlike the cave-pocked coves to the east, it lies wide open, and families favour it. From its eastern end a clifftop trail runs to Ponta da Piedade.

Walls ringing the old town, rebuilt in the 16th century on Islamic-era foundations. Towers and gates line the stretch along the riverside avenue, and parts of the parapet can be walked. Step through a gate and the whitewashed lanes begin at once.

Sculptor Joao Cutileiro made this statue of the boy king for Praca Gil Eanes in 1973. King Sebastiao sailed from this harbour for Morocco in 1578 and never returned. Its smooth helmeted figure was mocked as an astronaut and argued over from day one.

The south-western corner of mainland Europe, a cliff a short drive west of Sagres. A red-roofed lighthouse stands at the tip and the Atlantic breaks far below. Come sunset, cars pour in and watchers perch on the low wall facing the lighthouse.

The beach of Luz, a seaside village west of Lagos, where calm water makes it a children's beach. Rocha Negra, the black rock, rears up at the eastern end. A dirt path climbs it to a summit where village and sea spread out together.

Crown of the Monchique hills and, at 902m, the Algarve's loftiest spot. The drive up from the coast is under sixty minutes, and clear days reveal the shoreline from Lagos bay to Cape St Vincent. Monchique town below is known for medronho spirit and its spa.