PORTUGAL DREAM: THE ALGARVE COAST

Portugal is a country that, despite having it as a neighbour, I had not had the opportunity to visit. Everything changed last spring when I decided to head for the Algarve and discover one of the most beautiful areas of the Iberian Peninsula (with the permission of my wonderful Spanish coasts, which I have a special affection for!)

I planned this trip for four days and I have to confess that this year 2023 I am trying to get away again as it was impossible to visit all the places I would have liked to in such a short time.

For those of you who don't know the Algarve, it is the southernmost region of Portugal full of beaches, coves, rock formations and cliffs bathed by the Atlantic Ocean. It is a very touristy area, so if your aim is to photograph it, I recommend planning your trip in the low season. Even so, the part where you will find many villages full of hotels, restaurants, supermarkets and tourists is the southern part. The west side is less crowded and less developed, so it is there where you will find difficult to access beaches surrounded by huge cliffs that will make you feel very small.

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Portugal & The Algarve location (Source: Google Maps)

Having said that, let's start at the beginning. For accommodation, I chose Lagos which is located just halfway between Faro and the west coast. From this point, the longest drive to each of the spots was 40 minutes, so everything is quite close. The village is very welcoming and has all the facilities to make sure you have everything you need during your stay.

As for the type of vehicle, I drove around the whole area in a car and had no major problems. It is true that some roads in the west are not asphalted and I had a scare thinking that I wouldn't be able to get there, so if you want to go quietly, a 4x4 will make things much easier and you won't have any of these little "micro-strokes" when you see the spot so close on the navigator and so far away in reality on bad roads. Important, in Portugal there are tolls, so if you enter with your vehicle you will have to register it on this website and link your number plate to your credit card so that you are billed by kilometres travelled. If technology is not your thing, don't worry, there are machines and an information point at the border to help you with this process.

Once all the bureaucracy is done, you are ready to begin your adventure. And, Mara, where do I start? Well, you can start with sunrises in the south and sunsets on the west coast, wherever you feel like it!

I decided to follow this premise so that my favourite lights of the day would catch me in some of the places I most wanted to see, so I started with the most emblematic places in Faro:

PRAIA DO CAMILO

If you are looking for the famous wooden stairs beach, this is it! 200 steps separate the parking area from the sand. It has a small tunnel and some rock formations on the coast that give a lot of compositional play beyond the "typical" snapshot we see of it.

Important: in most beaches in the south of Portugal we find seagulls. Seagulls that were there before we arrived to fly our drone. So understand and respect that this is their habitat. If you see a lot of seagulls, don't fly. You can wait for them to leave or even come back another time. If you do, you will not only disturb their rest but they will attack your drone...and they are huge! Be careful, for their sake and for your own!

PONTA DA PIEDADE

This place surprised me. For a low season, it was quite crowded, so if you want to enjoy the place for yourself, sacrifice the sunrise at Praia do Camilo and go to this location first.

The views are breathtaking and the route is quite simple and marked out so you can walk down from the parking area (yes, being cliffs the walk back to the car is uphill!)

In the following days I continued touring the south coast and visiting beautiful places such as:

PRAIA DOS TRES IRMAOS

This beach is surrounded by spectacular rock formations that have been shaped by the action of water and wind. The entrance to this beach must be made by following a path and going through a small rock tunnel. You can't get lost and I assure you that when you cross the tunnel all that will come out of your lips will be an abysmal WOW. The beach gets its name from the three rock formations in the water forming a triangle.

Important: seagulls and wind. Be very careful when flying.

PRAIA DA PRAINHA

You can literally cross to it from Paia dos Tres Irmaos, although you have to cross a rock arch and get that WOW ready again once you have crossed it.

It is very similar in style to the previous one but it is still worth crossing to see it.

And be careful, it is still a seagull area!

Despite having been able to visit four of the places I was most looking forward to seeing, many others were left out as I didn't have more sunrises and I wanted to go along part of the west coast until I got to Bordeira, as I thought I was going to love it... and I wasn't wrong!

The west is much more unspoilt, you hardly see any tourists and once you are immersed in it, the feeling of being so small is so addictive that you don't want to go back to the south. There you will meet surfers and fishermen. Be careful with the rising and falling tides, there are areas on the beach that are inaccessible at high tide, which is usually after sunset, so it's something to be aware of. I had to run away from one of them because it was getting higher and higher and was going to flood the rocky area through which I accessed it.

My favourite places in the West were:

PRAIA DO CASTELEJO
PRAIA DA CARDOAMA
PRAIA DO BARRIGA

All of them could easily be one tremendously long beach but it is divided into three areas with Castelejo being the "flattest" (I am putting it in quotation marks because it is only the shore! You see cliffs from the first minute) and the height of the cliffs increases until you reach Barriga.

The light here at sunset is wonderful, the waves are quite big and sometimes it is very windy which makes sand grains fly and impact against you and your camera, so you should take care of your equipment and do not expose the sensor to lens changes if you are not protected. This way you will avoid dirt and a few scares.

As for the photographic possibilities, they are endless, not only because the landscape is spectacular but also because it is a surfing area and there are possibilities of backlighting and very nice scales.

Without a doubt, the beauty of this area was a surprise and I am very much looking forward to continue discovering it. Especially the beaches to the north of Bordeira, in the west, which are still inhospitable and full of breathtaking cliffs.

If you are thinking about the Algarve as your next destination and you have any questions or if you have already been there and would like to exchange feelings, you can contact me via social media or leave your comment below!