Vilamoura

Possibly the most developed town of the ones I want to talk about. For people that like the town, the technology, this is the right choice for them.

Like we can see in the photo, this town has a great view, close to the sea where rich people park their boats.

Things to do? All kinds of things, the town has discos, golf fields, casino, tennis, diving club, big beach, many 5 and 4 star hotels and for those who like to fish, here we can borrow a boat to go fishing, more precisely shark fishing.

It's the most expensive town of the five.

I recommend to people that don't care of expending more money in their vacation to enjoy it for real.

Albufeira

I can say, because I am Portuguese, that this town has possibly the most habited beach of Algarve, it receives dozens of tourists around the world all years and it's very clean and nice. Another entertainment that this town has is the disco that on Summer nights makes a lot of money thanks to the big number of people that go out at night. I recommend this place to people that want to meet other people of different cultures since that very nations come to this place.

I recommend to people to like to party and meet people.

Tavira

When I go to Algarve this is one of the places that I always visit.

This is a photo that represents the low sea times; fishermen go to the sand to catch crabs.

It's a normal town with many stores for tourists where they can find all kinds of products.

The most attractive part of this town is the island, “Ilha de Tavira”, to go there we must pay the boat trip that lasts between 20-30minutes. Once there we can see a small beach with some fisherman, then, by going in the island we can find a big territory of camping for people that don't want to go to the houses back in the town. At the end of the road we find several restaurants and an HUGE beach, with a football field and volley field.

I recommend to people very interested in a good beach and nice environment.

Portimão

Unfortunately, I can't say much about this place, I apologize to the readers but I like to write articles about what I know, what I saw, what I am sure of saying, not search the different opinion of others (I respect their work and for that I am not going to copy paste their work).

What I can say is that the beach of Portimão, “Praia da Rocha”, is an international known beach that receives so many tourists as the beach of Albufeira.

I recommend to people that want to explore more this town and, again, I apologize for my weak knowledge of this town.

Fuzeta

My favorite place to go in the Summer, not only is calm and nice but it's also a town with great beach, great environment and sociable people.

Since 1998 I go there and since then I always liked. The years pass by and I see more and more people coming to this little “village” (village compared with the other towns I have spoken of).

This town has a camping field near the beach, “Praia da Ria Formosa” or “Praia dos tesos” (this last one is named “tesos”, that means poor), and near the place where the boats go to the “Ilha da Harmona” or “Ilha da Fuzeta”.

About the first beach I can say that it is a very calm and relaxing place with the water hotter than the one in the island (almost every time) and sometimes clean and other times with seaweeds and dark. When the sea is load many people go to the right of the beach to a kind of abandoned house to catch crabs to eat or use has bait to fish

About the island I can say that the beach as approximately the same size as the island of Tavira but the island is smaller in length. Has a lot of homes to people that want to be there the all day, sleep, etc; it has one restaurant, one snack place and one meal place. The beach is simply beautiful, clean, crystal water but sometimes has seaweeds, good environment and so on. When the sea is low we can catch on the sand kinds of shells with sea food in it. Far from the center of the beach we can find some fishermen depending on the weather conditions.

In the town we have fairs on the first Thursday and the first Sunday of the mount where we can find antiques and other stuff that fairs normally have.

At the night the town is full of coffee houses, some in poor places, and other in rich places (poor-rich to distinguish the places in the same town that can be evaluated this way). Nights of July we see religious events, next to the camping there is a football field (5vs5) that shows games and live music. Nights of August I only remember the great number of people compared with the other months, I don't know much because I only went once on August and I was too young. Nights of September are pretty normal, nothing of interesting happens; it's the month of less people.

I recommend this place to people that like what I described, calm, not the destiny of many tourists, has the minimum requisitions to a relax vacation

Hope you like this article and help you decide where to go in your Summer vacations.

In case of doubt, ask me whatever you want and I will try to help.

 

The Marina, Lagos. December 2007.

Cheap Holiday Deals

We were lucky to find a real bargain flying with EasyJet and staying in the Magnolia Mar Beach Club out at Praia de Mos. We had an eight day break, self catering, for around £250 for the two of us including flights.

We found this deal online at the EasyJet holiday website. This isn't an advert for EasyJet; there were many other equally good deals to be had, so shop around. We've flown with "no frills" airlines before e.g. Jet2 to Hungary and have found them to be good value and reasonably efficient.

Weather

Overcast skies, Praia de Mos.

Overall the weather was mild. We had some heavy rain for two days during which there was a spectacular thunderstorm. Some English ex-pats who'd been there 20 years were saying this was very unusual. As a rule you can expect the temperature to be cooler in the early morning and from about 4pm onwards you'll need a jacket or sweater. In the middle of the day it was warm enough to sit and eat outside on the balcony in a sleeveless top and there was plenty of sunshine. When it was raining there was a wind coming in off the Atlantic which made for some pretty awesome waves, but otherwise just a gentle breeze.

Getting About

Railway station at Silves.

Our accommodation was about 2 miles from the town centre, although only a five minute walk from the nearest beach (Praia de Mos). It was possible to walk into the town but it was mostly up some pretty steep hills. We never did figure out if there was a bus service nearby but the hotel provided a once a day free bus service into Lagos leaving at 10am and returning at 6.30pm. If we missed this we used a taxi which cost around 5 Euros each way (about £3).

There's a good local train service from Lagos and we used this one day for a trip to the nearby town of Silves. It cost only 4 Euros each return.

Eating (and Drinking) Out

Typical pavement café.

Most places were open during the off season. There are plenty of small cafes where you can get a coffee, beer or a snack. The restaurants all offer much the same choice of menu, with plenty of fish. Prices vary of course. The best place we found was a tiny restaurant down near the police station called Jaou's. It was owned by a husband and wife in their fifties and was clean and welcoming without being ostentatious. The food was cooked as we watched and was superb. Try the "green" soup. Out of this world!

Jimmy at The Three Monkeys.

Lagos has a number of bars and pubs quite a few of which are run by expats. If you like football the Fools and Horses has a big screen. For fans of 60's and 70's rock music then The Three Monkeys is a must. They play none stop (loud) music and will play requests if you ask nicely! The staff are really friendly and we had some very interesting conversations - despite the volume of the music.

Beaches

Praia de Mos. December 2007.

There are a number of beaches around Lagos. We stayed within five minutes walking distance from Praia de Mos, which was breathtakingly beautiful - and practically deserted in December. Not a time of year for sunbathing. Even though there was wall to wall sunshine it was pretty chilly down on the beach. Not everyone was put off though.As we relaxed with a coffee at Antonio's beach restaurant, we did spot the very brave soul pictured below!

December surfer……brrrr!

The Old Town

The Old Town Wall, Lagos.

The Old Town was once surrounded by a wall of which only fragments seem to remain. The streets are narrow and paved with unusual mosaic cobbles. It's a bit of a maze at first and easy to get lost but after a while you somehow manage to instinctively find your way a round. It was particularly attractive when we saw it because of Christmas. Decorations and lights were up and there was a carol service held in the Old Town square. If you like your Christmas uncommercialised you'll love the atmosphere.

Christmas lights in Lagos.

A typical street.

Shopping in Lagos.

Old Town Square.