The Algarve’s extremities

Bird watching, nature, elemental high drama

ROUTE: Faro • Ria Formosa Natural Park • Tavira • Ilha de Tavira • Sagres • Cape St Vincent • Arrifana • Aljezur WHEN TO GO: Spring and autumn are best. Winter can also be wonderful for birding. WHY DO IT: Because there is so much more to the Algarve than the thronging beach resorts – explore its nature-rich east-end and ruggedly wild west.

Slice Portugal’s deep south into three, roughly equal, pieces and you find a trio of quite distinct Algarves. The idea here is to forget the touristy middle section, and instead explore both the bird-rich flatlands of the east, and the wild, sea-surged west.

Eastwards, beyond Faro, the coastline splinters into marshy wetlands, salt flats and sandy islands which emerge and disappear with the tide. Spoonbills, flamingos, and waders that winter in West Africa find their way to Ria Formosa NP in huge numbers.

The waterfront at Tavira, on the Gilão estuary is lined with elegant, 18th century classical facades built on the prosperity of tuna fishing. Have lunch at a quayside seafood restaurant before catching the ferry out to Ilha de Tavira island, an 11kmlong strand of tide-washed, desert island-esque sand.

Around Sagres over on the western side of the Algarve, gulls swirl and hover over sheer 75m cliffs. The furthest promontory is Cape St Vincent, the very corner of continental Europe, punctuated with a lighthouse. Turn right here and you are on Portugal’s west coast, where a track off the main road leads to Arrifana beach where waves crash onto expanses of sand overhung with reddy- brown bluffs. A short way inland, you’ll find the Moorish town of Aljezur, all whitewashed walls and red tiles topped by a ruined castle.

One of the world’s oldest nations, Portugal has been an independent Kingdom since 1139, with borders almost unchanged since 1249.

Find the eggy tarts on home turf at the blue -tiled Pastéis de Belém café, just along from Jerónimos monastery. They were first made by the monks, more than 200 years ago.

The five massive dams built on the Douro in the 1970s and ’80s, have transformed a rocky river into a series of placid, lake-like stretches making the river navigable for boats.