Lagos Listing

After the fun and vitality of Lisbon it was great to calm down for a few days on the Algarve to break up our trip.

But first, we had to get here, via two crowded trains choc-a-bloc with confused people and suitcases that wouldn’t have seemed out of place on the Queen Mary. The second, local, train was standing room only, the aisles full of bodies and backpacks.

As for Lagos, although (since it’s a part of Europe) it does have an incredible history - most infamously as one of the first slave-trading ports - we just enjoyed the warmth and the scenery. As Dennis Denuto so succinctly put it in “The Castle”, “It’s all about the vibe”. It’s probably one of the most photogenic places we have seen.

Lagos is on the River Bensafrim, with a vast marina full of rich persons’ playthings and a whole industry devoted to marketing and providing all sorts of water-based tours, from kayaks to yachts, caving to dolphin-spotting.

The old town area, winding up hill from the river, is a maze of cobblestones covered in bars and restaurants, with music playing and people eating and drinking at all hours of the day and night. Just wandering around is fun.

Just west of the mouth of the river is Praia da Batata, the first of a series of beaches, some interconnected through arches and tunnels in the sandstone cliffs, that stretches a few kilometres out to the headland at Ponta da Piedade. The scenery is stunning, with the golden sandstone cliffs and ridges, the almost-empty beaches and the clear blue of the sea making for a postcard view at every turn.

For a few relaxing days Lagos is hard to beat, and even though we successfully avoided all history and culture (true to form, some might say), we’re still leaving with some great memories.Read more