Portugal Archives - Pacific Northwest Explorer

Faro, Portugal and the Algarve Coast

by Alan K. Lee

Introduction

The Algarve consists of the southern coastline of Portugal, from Cabo Sagres in the west to the Spanish border in the east. The international airport in Faro, the largest city in the Algarve, makes the area easily accessible from anywhere in Europe, and the sunny climate and gorgeous coastline combined with the relatively low cost of accommodations and meals make it a wildly popular destination for tourists from colder and wetter, and more expensive, regions of Europe like the U.K.

My wife and I had the pleasure of spending a couple of days in Faro on our trip to Portugal and Spain this past April (2024). We also booked a day tour to the spectacularly beautiful coastal area near Carvoeiro, roughly 40 miles west of Faro. Our time in Faro and the Algarve gave us only a taste of what the area is all about, but its appeal was obvious, even at first glance.

Faro

Faro is situated on the banks of the Rio Formosa Lagoon, which is protected from the open Atlantic by a series of barrier islands. The lagoon was named a National Nature Park in 1987 and recognized as one of the seven natural wonders of the country in 2010. The park encompasses 65 square miles (170 square kilometers) of salt marsh and islands. It is an important stopping place for migratory birds, and the barrier island beaches are popular recreational areas for locals and tourists.

The Faro area has a long history and has been occupied since prehistoric times. The first recorded settlement dates to the 4th century BC when the Phoenicians established a town on the Rio Formosa Lagoon. The area has been controlled by the Phoenicians, Romans, Byzantines, Visigoths, and the Moors, who ruled the area for more than 500 years before Christian forces captured the area in 1249 during the Reconquista.

Faro has a charming old town with an interesting history, a small boat harbor, narrow cobblestone and tiled streets and alleys, restaurants and cafes seemingly on every corner, and beautiful churches and other buildings that predate anything to be found in our hometown, sometimes by many centuries.

We spent most of our time in Faro exploring the old town, sampling the local cuisine, enjoying the sunshine, and taking tons of photos. We did not visit any of the barrier island beaches, but the host of our B&B went out of her way to tell us about them and give us information about the ferry and tour boat operations that will take you there, an indication of how much the locals value the beaches. While Faro may not be a prime tourist destination, other than as a gateway to the Algarve, and gets short shrift in most guidebooks (Rick Steves’ Portugal makes no mention of Faro at all, for example), we found it to be a charming and worthwhile stop on our trip. For more information about Faro, click here.

The Algarve Coast

The first stop on our day tour of the Algarve was Algar Seco, just east of the small town of Carvoeiro. A wooden boardwalk runs along the top of the cliffs there, with amazing 180⁰ views east and west along the coast.

Stairs lead down from the boardwalk and into the limestone rock formations. The limestone cliffs rise directly from the ocean, with natural pools and blowholes along the water’s edge. Sea caves dot the area, and there are numerous dry caves higher up in the cliffs. Fossils of clams and other marine creatures can be found throughout the limestone layers.

Paths and tunnels that have been cut through the soft rock give easy access to the whole area. We had a great time exploring the cliffs and caves and just taking in the incredible views of the cliffs and ocean. Algar Seco is just an incredibly scenic place, well worth the hour-long van ride from Faro.

Our second stop was the Benagil area, a few miles east of Algar Seco. Photos of Benagil Cave were what drew my wife and I to the Algarve in the first place. We had dreams of kayaking or motoring into the cave that has a nice sandy beach, several openings to the sea, and a collapsed section of the roof giving views of the sky above. But so did hordes of tourists before us. So many, in fact, that overcrowding has led to regulations prohibiting all watercraft from entering the cave, making a boat tour less appealing.

And from above, you can barely see into the cave through the collapsed roof, unless you climb over the wooden barrier or go around it and climb along the edge of the opening, which many people (my wife and I included) do even though it is not safe.

The coastline there is plenty scenic, but we could have skipped Benagil, in my opinion. (But kayaking the coastline, even if you can’t access Benagil Cave, would be awesome).

Our final stop came at Marinha Beach, about a mile east of Benagil Cave. A trail leads from the parking area down to the beach, and there is a network of trails leading along the top of the cliffs to the west of the beach. Offshore sea stacks and several natural arches make this one of the most scenic shorelines you’ll find anywhere in the world.

We had a couple of hours at Marinha to enjoy the beach and explore the cliffs on our own before we had to meet back up with the tour group and head back to Faro. I think we could have easily spent the whole day there. Algar Seco is fantastic and should be on your itinerary if you visit the Algarve, but in my opinion, Marinha Beach and the cliffs of the Arcos Naturais (Natural Arches) are even better, without a doubt one of the highlights of our visit to Portugal.

Conclusion

Faro is an interesting city and a worthwhile stop, but if you have more time to explore the Algarve than we had, I suggest that you follow Rick Steves’ lead and spend a few days in Lagos or Salema in the far west of the Algarve. After all, we thought the area around Carvoeiro that we toured was fantastic, but Steves labels that part of the coast “the worst” of the Algarve. Yes, it’s touristy, crowded, and the lack of access to Benagil Cave makes it overrated. But, if the west end is better than Algar Seco and Marinha Beach, it has to be well worth visiting. We may never make it back to Portugal (so many places to see, so little time), but we will definitely explore the Algarve more thoroughly if we ever return.

Faro and the Algarve coastline are great destinations, and Lisbon and the surrounding area are definitely bucket list destinations for anyone that can travel to Europe. For more on our trip to Portugal, see to my posts on Lisbon and Sintra.

Posted July 11, 2024

All photos © Alan K. Lee

Sintra, Portugal

by Alan K. Lee

Introduction

Sintra is a magical fairytale town that combines spectacular palaces and magnificent gardens with the area’s deep history, making it a truly unique destination. It’s a UNESCO World Heritage Site and a must-see side trip if you’re visiting nearby Lisbon. Visiting Sintra can be done as a daytrip from Lisbon, which is what my wife and I did on our recent visit to Portugal and Andalucia, but you can’t see everything Sintra has to offer in a single day. To take in all Sintra has to offer, you either need to make several daytrips from Lisbon or, better yet, plan to spend a night or two in one of the town’s many hotels.

Since we had time for only a single daytrip from Lisbon, we had to be strategic about what we saw and what we didn’t. The top four attractions in Sintra are the Pena Palace (Palacio Nacional da Pena), the Castle of the Moors (Castelo dos Mouros), Quinta da Regaleira, and the Sintra Palace (Palacio Nacional da Sintra). We could have seen all four, had dinner in Sintra, and still been able to catch a return train to Lisbon that evening, but we weren’t sure we’d have time for all of that when we were making our plans. In the end, we chose to skip the Sintra Palace. But even though you can tour all four major attractions in a day, you won’t be able to fully explore them, and there’s still much to see in and around Sintra to make a second day necessary to see it all.

Getting there and getting around

If you’re doing a day trip from Lisbon, the best way to get to Sintra is by train. Trains to Sintra run from both the Rossio Train Station in the center of Lisbon and the Oriente Station near the airport, departing about every 20 minutes throughout the day. Tickets are cheap, less than three Euros one-way per person. They can be purchased at ticket counters or vending machines at either station and come in the form of a plastic Viva Viagem card. Tickets cannot be purchased online. Each person needs to have their own card, and tickets are one-way, so each person needs to purchase two tickets for a round trip. The trains are free if you purchase a Lisboa Card, which also gives you discounts to the major attractions in Sintra, free admission to many attractions in Lisbon, and unlimited travel on Lisbon’s Metro subway, surface tramway system, and public buses. See the Sintra Tourism website for more detailed information, including train schedules.

Once in Sintra, it’s about a 10-minute walk from the train station to the center of the historic old town and the Sintra Palace, and another ten minutes to Quinta da Regaleira. The Pena Palace and the Castle of the Moors are located on hilltops high above the town and are best reached by local bus (#434), taxi, or tuk tuk. The road to both is closed to private vehicles. You can hike up to them, but it’s quite a climb and I doubt that many people get there on foot. The old town center and Quinta da Regaleira can also be reached by bus (#435), taxi, or tuk tuk. There are also many tour companies that offer a range of tours that will take you to any or all of the major attractions in Sintra.

The Pena Place, Sintra Palace, and Castle of the Moors are all operated by Parques de Sintra and require timed entry tickets. We purchased tickets for the Pena Palace online, but it took much longer to get from town to the entrance to the park by bus than we anticipated, it’s at least a ten-minute walk from the park entrance to the palace, and there was a long line to get into the palace. All those factors meant that we were late getting to the palace entrance, outside the 30-minute window are tickets were good for. They let us in, though, despite the website stating that late entry would be denied and the cost of the tickets would not be refunded. Perhaps that was because we were there on a national holiday (see my post on Lisbon for more information about Portugal’s Freedom Day), but they could have legitimately sent us packing, so be sure to leave plenty of time to get there. You can wander around the grounds of the park if you’re early. We did not purchase tickets to the Castle of the Moors in advance, but we were able to purchase tickets on site. Quinta da Regaleira does not require timed entry tickets and the tickets we purchased online were valid for four months from the date of purchase.

Quinta da Regaleira

Quinta da Regaleira was built by a man named António Augusto Carvalho Monteiro, who purchased the property in the late 19^th century. From its completion in 1910 until 1997 the palace and grounds were a private estate. It was then purchased by the City of Sintra and opened to the public.

We did not tour the interior of the palace, but the park-like grounds surrounding the palace are a magical land of towers, ponds, pathways, tunnels, grottos, and a 100-foot-deep well with a spiral staircase around the perimeter known as the Initiation Well. The initiation to what is not clear, but Monteiro had ties to the Free Masons organization, which may have evolved out of the medieval Knights Templar, a somewhat secretive and mysterious military and religious order central to the Crusades, that once controlled Sintra.

The grounds are a bit confusing, and the intersecting paths are not well signed, so do your research and plan your visit well. Do not, as we did, simply show up and wander the grounds. We had a hard time finding the Initiation Well and were on the verge of giving up when we finally stumbled across it. Since it was the one feature that both my wife and I had independently hit on before we even began planning a trip to Portugal, not getting to experience it would have been a big loss.

There was a long line to get into the Initiation Well once we finally found out where it was, but it was well worth the twenty minutes or so that we had to wait. You enter through a small tunnel and then spiral your way down the perimeter staircase. It’s slow going because people are taking their time, trying to get photos that convey the experience (without much success in my case), or just taking in the weirdness and magnificence of it.

At the bottom you enter a long tunnel that takes you to the backside of a small waterfall and then out to one of the several ponds on the property. The gardens are a fever dream of fantasy and imagination, filled with caves, statues, enigmatic carvings, and structures that are completely unique and must be seen to be fully appreciated, all the creation of Monteiro and his architect, Luigi Manini.

Pena Palace

The Pena Palace dates to only the mid-19^th century, but the history of the site goes back to a 12^th century chapel dedicated to Our Lady of Pena and the 15^th century Monastery of St. Jerome. The monastery was left mostly in ruins by the earthquake of 1755 but what remained continued to be occupied until 1834 when it was finally abandoned.

The property was then purchased by Ferdinand II, King-consort and husband of Queen Maria II, who built the Pena Palace on the old monastery site. The palace was the summer residence of the Portuguese royal family until the monarchy was abolished in 1910, when it became a National Monument. It was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1995.

The palace is surrounded by parkland that was developed by Ferdinand II during the same time period that the palace was built. Unfortunately, we did not have time to see more of the park than the portion of the grounds between the park entrance and the palace, another good reason to spend more time in Sintra than we allowed ourselves on our trip.

Castle of the Moors

After touring the Pena Palace, we walked the short distance back down the road to the Castelo dos Mouros. There is a ticket machine at the bus stop, which would not take my debit card, but there is another at the actual entrance to the castle, a short walk from the bus stop, where we were able to purchase tickets. Just inside the entrance, there is an interesting archeological site that was part of the Moorish village that once occupied the site. From there, it is an uphill climb to the parapet walls that snake across the slopes of the hill on which the castle is located.

The castle, a fortress high on a hill overlooking the Tagus River and the Lisbon area, was built between the 8^th and 10^th centuries by the Islamic rulers of the Iberian Peninsula to guard the surrounding agricultural areas. Inside the walls that stand today there was a Moorish village until 1147 when the area was retaken by Christian forces during the Reconquista.

Pena Palace, viewed from the Castle of the Moors

Little remains of the Moorish village or the subsequent Christian settlement that took its place, except for the ruins of the Chapel of São Pedro de Penaferrim and a few other structures, but the site is spectacularly beautiful.

There is a lot of climbing on the steeply sloped grounds if you want to see it all, especially up to the highest point. But the awesome views of the Pena Palace (as seen in the featured image at the top of this post) and down to the old town area of Sintra and the Sintra Palace, make the climb well worth the effort required.

Sintra Palace

The Sintra Palace dates to the same time period as the Castle of the Moors, but nothing of the original Moorish palace remains. The oldest part of the existing palace is the Royal Chapel, which may have been constructed in the early 14^th century. Most of the existing palace was built in the 15^th century. The palace was a summer residence of the Portuguese royal family for more than 500 years.

We did not tour the palace, but in retrospect we should have planned better and taken it in along with the other three attractions in Sintra that we did tour. Something left for our next visit, I guess.

Other Sintra Attractions

The Sintra Town Hall (Camara Municipal de Sintra), located near the railroad station, is one of the first buildings you’ll see in Sintra, and it is worth a look. But most people, like us, pass it by on their way to the historic center of Sintra and the other Sintra attractions mentioned above.

You’ll also pass by the entrance to the Parque da Liberadade if you walk from the train station to the old town center. Again, most people pass it by, which we did as well. But it looks like it is worth exploring, if you have the time (another reason to spend more than one day in Sintra). The historic town center is itself worth exploring, too.

Monserrate Palace. Photo by Jocelyn Erskine-Kelly, sourced from Wikimedia Commons.

About two miles west of the historic center, on the Rua Barbosa du Bocage (about 1.5 miles past Quinta da Regaleira), you’ll find the beautiful Park and Palace of Monserrate. The same bus that takes you to Quinta da Regaleira also takes you to Monserrate Palace. There are also numerous private tours that stop at Monserrate.

Cabo de Roca. Photo sourced from Wikimedia Commons and credited to “Mister No.”

Further west, Cabo de Roca, the westernmost point of Europe, is also a stop on many private tours, as are the nearby beaches. You can also ride the #435 bus all the way to the cape and beaches.

Conclusion

Whether you have only half a day or have two or more days to explore Sintra, you’ll come away impressed by the beauty, magnificence, and, in some cases, the weirdness of what you’ve seen. I can’t imagine anyone coming away from Sintra unhappy that they had come. It was definitely one of the highlights of our trip. But there were many other highlights, as well. Look for other posts from our trip that will be coming over the next month or so, including Faro and the Algarve, Seville, Cordoba, Granada, and Ronda, Spain.

Posted June 16, 2024

Lisbon, Portugal

By Alan K. Lee

My wife and I recently traveled to Portugal and the Andalusia region of Spain for the first time. We had been talking about going to Lisbon and the rest of Portugal someday for a long time and had started planning this trip in 2019. But the Covid-19 pandemic scuttled that plan, and all our travel plans. And when we did decide to travel again, in 2022 as the pandemic was winding down, we did a Danube River cruise instead of going to Portugal. But we didn’t write off Portugal, and we resurrected our old plan in 2023 and rescheduled it for this spring (2024).

Lisbon was our first stop. We’d have been excited to finally set foot in Portugal, but after enduring a nine hour overnight flight from Portland to London, a two hour layover at Heathrow, a two hour delay after boarding our connecting flight while the flight crew and British Airways mechanics repaired the plane’s radio, and a two hour flight from London to Lisbon, we were too jet-lagged and sleep deprived to be excited about anything.

That all changed the next morning when we set out to explore Lisbon. We typically set aside one day at any new destination to just wander around, walk the streets, and see what we bump into. And that’s what we did on our first day in Lisbon.

Our hotel was about a half mile from Rossio Square, and that was our first stop that morning. Officially, it is King Pedro IV Square (Praca Dom Pedro IV), but everyone calls it Rossio. The square is paved with a distinctive wave-patterned tile. There are two large Baroque fountains at either end of the square and a statue of King Pedro IV set on the top of a nearly ninety-foot-tall column in the center of the square. Rossio Square has been the predominant site of city gatherings in Lisbon for centuries.

We explored the area around Rossio Square, including the nearby Praca dos Restauradores, which memorializes the restoration of a Portuguese monarchy separate from the Spanish monarchy in 1668, after a war that lasted 28 years. We also found the Rossio Train Station, from which we would take a train to Sintra the following day. We then made our way to the Santa Justa Elevator, which takes visitors up to the Bairro Alto section of the city. The elevator is itself a tourist attraction, though, and there was a crowd waiting to ride the elevator. We decided not to wait.

Nearby, we found a department store with a set of escalators and a fourth-floor exit onto an upper street behind the building. From there it was only a short uphill walk to the Archaeological Museum of Carmo (Museu Arqueológico do Carmo) and the ruins of the Carmo Convent that was destroyed by an earthquake in 1755.

View from the top of the Santa Justa Elevator

And from there we crossed a short bridge to the viewing platform at the top of the Santa Justa Elevator, which gives magnificent views across central Lisbon to the Sao Jorge Castle and to the Tagus River and beyond.

After taking in the views, we made our way down to the riverfront and the Praca do Comercio (Commerce Square) where crews were setting up for the Freedom Day celebrations (more on that below). From there we walked along the riverfront to the lower end of the Alfama district.

Statue of King Jose I in Commerce Square

The Alfama is a hillside neighborhood of narrow, winding cobblestone streets and alleys. In the past it was a poorer, rougher area home to dockworkers and sailors, and not an area tourists would want to visit. But today it is an upscale area home to artisans, many shops and restaurants, quaint and picturesque homes, several large churches, and the National Pantheon (pictured in the featured image at the top of this post). And it is definitely a must see for everyone visiting the city.

We stopped for lunch at a little restaurant that has a small outdoor courtyard seating area before wandering through the upper part of the Alfama and back to our hotel.

We had some trouble finding a place to eat that evening. The following day was Freedom Day and the partying was already well underway by then. Most of the restaurants near our hotel were already packed. We finally found an “artisanal” burger place with a few empty tables. The burgers weren’t that good, but we were just happy to get some food in our bellies after a long day on our feet. (We walked at least six miles that day, probably more).

Freedom Day in Portugal celebrates the overthrow of the dictatorship in 1974. It was a bloodless military coup and is called the “carnation revolution” because soldiers marching in the streets placed carnations in the barrels of their guns in celebration. April the 25^th is the equivalent of our 4^th of July, and it is a very, very big thing in Portugal, as we found out, both that evening and the following day.

Our second full day in Lisbon was mostly taken up with a day trip to Sintra (which I’ll cover in an upcoming post), but when we returned to Lisbon that evening, we exited the Rossio Train Station into a parade or march filling the street in front of the station from curb to curb with a mass of people heading to Rossio Square, some carrying homemade signs. We had to make our way across the street to get back to our hotel, so we joined the crowd for a ways and pretended we were Lisboners celebrating our freedom. Great fun and wonderful to see that mass of humanity on the streets in celebration.

On our third and final full day in Lisbon we stopped at the closest Metro station to our hotel after breakfast and bought 24-hour passes, which cover both the Metro subway system and the surface tramway system (and local buses, too, I believe), then walked to Martin Moniz Square where we caught a ride on the famed Tram 28 (after a fairly long wait in line even though we got there early).

Tram 28 takes you up through the Alfama, across the Baixa (the central business district), through the Chiado and Bairro Alta sections of the city, and all the way to Campo de Ourique in the west end of Lisbon.

The turnaround point is the oddly named Cemetery of Pleasures (Cemiteria dos Prazeres). I think maybe something got lost in translation there. Anyway, it’s a huge above ground cemetery with thousands of family tombs, some of them large and ornate. Everyone has to get off the tram there, so we took some time to explore the cemetery before catching a later tram back to the center of the city.

Castle of St. George (Castelo de Sao Jorge)

We got off the tram again in the Alfama. (With a 24-hour Metro pass, you can hop on and hop off the tram at will). After splitting a pizza for lunch at a little pizzeria, we walked up to Sao Jorge Castle, the high point of the Alfama. We spent a couple of hours touring the castle grounds and garden, the castle museum, and the chapel, then walked back down the hill to our hotel.

That evening, we had dinner and a couple of brews at Sputnik Brewing, two doors down from our hotel. We would have stopped in earlier, but the first two evenings the place was packed with Freedom Day celebrants, the crowd spilled out onto the sidewalk both nights, and we almost literally couldn’t have gotten in.

The following morning, we checked out of the hotel and rode the Metro (which is quick, clean, and safe) to the bus station where we caught a bus to Faro in the Algarve on the south coast of Portugal (look for a future post on our time there).

We had a great time in Lisbon and I’m glad we finally got to visit after five years of planning and waiting. Would we have done things differently if we had known what we do now? Probably. I think we would have skipped the day of wandering around on foot, and done the Tram 28 tour first, taking time to explore the Alfama and the castle in the morning, and exploring more of Bairro Alta in the afternoon. With the extra day, I think we would have gone to Belem, just west of Lisbon, and maybe to the seaside town of Cascais farther to the west. Taking a day trip to Sintra, as we did, is a must, though. I think if we were to do it again, we would stay an additional day or two. There is much to see in Lisbon that we didn’t have time for. You could easily spend five or six days (or longer) there and not run out of things to do. But as it was, we had a lot on our agenda for this trip, and didn’t have the time to linger in Lisbon. I’ll cover the rest of the trip in later posts.

View of the Carmo Convent ruins from Rossio Square

Posted June 6, 2024