Sunrise to Midnight: One Full Day in the Western Algarve

The Algarve is a region, not a city, and trying to see all of it in a day is how people end up spending their holiday on the motorway. The fix is to pick one end. The western Algarve gives you the most dramatic coast, the best inland history and the single best sunset in Portugal, all within a comfortable hour's driving radius.

Before you start

• You need a car. The train serves the coastal towns but none of the clifftop or cape stops
• Book the cave boat in advance in summer, and expect cancellations in swell
• Bring proper shoes for the cliff path; it is unfenced in places
• Fuel and park early in July and August, when coastal car parks fill before nine

6:30 — First light on the cliffs

Start at Praia da Marinha, the golden-ochre cliff formation that appears on half the region's postcards. Walk a stretch of the Seven Hanging Valleys path east or west; the full route runs roughly six kilometres one way, but even twenty minutes at dawn, with the sea flat below and nobody else out, sets the tone for the day.

9:00 — The sea caves

Down at the coast, boats run from several harbours out to the Benagil sea cave, the collapsed dome with a hole in its roof and a beach inside. Rules on entering and landing have changed in recent years, so book with a licensed operator and take their word on what is currently allowed. Kayak and stand-up paddle trips are the quieter alternative.

11:30 — Inland to Silves

Drive twenty-odd minutes inland and the whole character of the region changes. Silves, the Moorish capital of the Algarve for centuries, is built below a red sandstone castle with a cathedral beside it and an archaeology museum built around a medieval well. It is the best hour of history in the region.

1:30 — Lunch in the hills

Eat inland: grilled chicken with piri-piri, cataplana, or whatever the day's fish is, at a village restaurant rather than a beachfront one. This is where the Algarve is cheapest and best.

3:30 — Lagos

Back to the coast for the afternoon. Lagos combines a walled old town, a church with a gilded interior worth the small ticket, a museum confronting the town's role in the early slave trade, and the sea stacks of Ponta da Piedade at its edge. Walk down the steps to the water if your knees allow.

7:00 — The end of Europe

Drive west to Cabo de Sao Vicente for sunset. The cliffs here are the southwestern extremity of the continent, the lighthouse sits on the edge of them, and the Atlantic goes on forever. It is windy and it is crowded and it is completely worth it. Bring a jacket, whatever the temperature was at lunch.

8:30 — Dinner and after

Eat in Sagres for something simple and salt-crusted, or drive back to Lagos, where the old-town streets fill after dark with everything from quiet tile-lined restaurants to a loud bar quarter.

Midnight

Lagos stays up late in summer and closes early in winter. Either way, finish on the waterfront looking back at the fort.

Tip: If you are here between November and February, run this day in reverse. Winter sunrises are late and the cape can be fogged in the morning, so start inland at Silves and be on the cliffs for the golden hour instead.