Portugal: Évora, the Alentejo Coast and the Quiet Algarve

Arrive in Lisbon

Lisbon Airport to your hotel in central Lisbon

• Welcome dinner
• Stay in Lisbon
• Drive about 30 min

Afternoon

Check-in is from mid-afternoon, so if you land early, leave your bags and walk down to the river at Praça do Comércio, or ride a yellow tram up towards the castle.

Evening

Lisbon is only the starting line on this trip: if you want time for Belém, Sintra and the old quarters, add a night or two before, or pair this trip with our Lisbon, Porto and Douro route. At 6 pm your See Sight Tours guide meets the group for a briefing on the week: how the walking days work, what to carry in a day pack, and why we finish in Faro rather than back in Lisbon. Then we walk to a small restaurant in the old town for a welcome dinner. Plan to land by about 3 pm to reach the briefing comfortably.

Included

• Pick-up at Lisbon Airport (LIS)
• Welcome briefing with your guide
• Welcome dinner in the old town

Standing stones and Évora

Lisbon across the Tagus to the Almendres Cromlech, then Évora

• Breakfast and lunch
• Stay in Évora
• Drive about 2 h

Morning

We leave Lisbon after breakfast over the Vasco da Gama Bridge, more than 12 km across the Tagus estuary, and drive east into the Alentejo, a country of cork oaks, olive groves and wheat. About 15 km before Évora a dirt lane leads to the Almendres Cromlech, a field of roughly a hundred granite standing stones raised in stages from about the sixth millennium BC, on a slope looking east. Early in the day we usually have it almost to ourselves.

Afternoon

Lunch is a sit-down meal in Évora, where we stay two nights inside the walls. In the afternoon your guide walks you through the town, listed by UNESCO in 1986: the columns of the Roman temple, the cathedral with its walk on the roof among the turrets, and the Chapel of Bones in the church of São Francisco, its walls lined with the bones of thousands of people.

Evening

We end in the arcaded Praça do Giraldo, and the evening is yours.

Included

• The Almendres Cromlech
• Sit-down lunch in Évora
• Guided walk of Évora: the Roman temple, the cathedral and its roof, the Chapel of Bones and the Praça do Giraldo

Monsaraz and an Alentejo wine lunch

Évora to Monsaraz, then a wine estate near Reguengos de Monsaraz and back to Évora

• Breakfast and lunch
• Stay in Évora
• Drive about 2 h

Morning

We arrive in the morning, before the day visitors and the heat, and walk its two main streets to the castle at the end of the ridge, where the walls look down on the Alqueva reservoir, a lake of drowned valleys and small islands filled after the dam closed in 2002.

Afternoon

From there it is a short drive to a family wine estate in the Reguengos area for a tour of the vines and cellar, a tasting, and a long sit-down lunch with the estate's wine. Some Alentejo estates still make wine in clay talhas, a method the Romans used here, and we ask to see it where it is done. We are back in Évora by mid-afternoon, with the rest of the day free to walk the aqueduct or sit in a square.

Included

• Monsaraz with your guide, including the castle walls
• Wine estate visit with a cellar tour and tasting
• Sit-down lunch with wine at the estate

Optional experiences

• Evening stargazing with an astronomer in the Dark Sky Alqueva area, about an hour from Évora (price shown at booking)

To the coast and the Fishermen's Trail

Évora to Vila Nova de Milfontes, then a walk on the Rota Vicentina

• Breakfast and lunch
• Stay in Vila Nova de Milfontes
• Drive about 2.5 h

Morning

We leave Évora after breakfast and cross the Alentejo plain to the Atlantic, about two and a quarter hours with a coffee stop.

Afternoon

Vila Nova de Milfontes sits where the Mira river meets the sea, inside the Southwest Alentejo and Vicentine Coast Natural Park, and lunch is a sit-down meal near the river. In the afternoon we walk part of the Fishermen's Trail, the coastal path of the Rota Vicentina. A small boat takes us across the river mouth to Praia das Furnas when it is running (otherwise we drive round by the bridge), and from there we follow the path south along the clifftops, over sand and low scrub, with coves and fishermen's ladders below. The easy version is about 6 km, and our vehicle meets us where a track reaches the coast. Walkers who want more carry on to Almograve, about 13 km from Furnas.

Evening

Back in Milfontes the evening is free; the river mouth faces west, so the sunset is over the sea.

Included

• Sit-down lunch in Vila Nova de Milfontes
• Boat across the Mira to Praia das Furnas (seasonal)
• Guided walk on the Fishermen's Trail of the Rota Vicentina, about 6 km

Down the Costa Vicentina to Sagres

Vila Nova de Milfontes to Zambujeira do Mar, Odeceixe and Sagres, then Cabo de São Vicente

• Breakfast and lunch
• Stay in Sagres
• Drive about 2.5 h

Afternoon

We continue south and cross the Seixe river at Odeceixe, the border between the Alentejo and the Algarve, then stop for a sit-down lunch in Aljezur, the old market town under its Moorish castle. The road runs on through the natural park, with the surf beaches of the west coast a few kilometres to the right, and reaches Sagres in the middle of the afternoon, where we stay two nights. After time to settle in, we drive out to Cabo de São Vicente, the south-western tip of mainland Europe, where the lighthouse stands on cliffs about 75 m above the sea.

Evening

We stay for sunset, then dinner is your choice in Sagres. Sunset falls from about 6:30 pm in March and late October to about 9 pm in June, so on early-sunset dates we go to the cape first and check in after.

Included

• Zambujeira do Mar and the clifftop walk to the chapel of Nossa Senhora do Mar
• Sit-down lunch in Aljezur
• Sunset at Cabo de São Vicente

Ponta da Piedade, Lagos and the Sagres fortress

Sagres to Luz and Ponta da Piedade, then Lagos, and back to the Sagres fortress

• Breakfast
• Stay in Sagres
• Drive about 1.5 h

Morning

In the late morning a small boat takes us into the grottoes, where it can slip through arches and into caves that the clifftop path only looks down on.

Afternoon

Lunch is your choice in Lagos, a walled port town with a long history, including the museum on the site of its 15th-century slave market. In the afternoon we drive back west to the Sagres fortress, on the flat headland that Prince Henry the Navigator is linked with in the 15th century. By late afternoon most coach groups have gone, so we walk the walls above the cliffs, see the great stone wind rose on the ground and the small church, and look along the coast to the cape.

Evening

The evening is free in Sagres.

Included

• Guided clifftop walk from Luz to Ponta da Piedade, about 6 km
• Small-boat trip into the Ponta da Piedade grottoes (sea conditions permitting)
• Time in Lagos old town
• The Sagres fortress in the late afternoon

Optional experiences

• A surf lesson on one of the beaches near Sagres in the afternoon (price shown at booking)

Across the Algarve to Tavira

Sagres to Tavira on the A22, then Ilha de Tavira

• Breakfast, lunch and dinner
• Stay in Tavira
• Drive about 2 h

Morning

We leave Sagres after breakfast and cross the Algarve on the motorway, about an hour and three quarters, passing the resort coast without stopping, to Tavira, a quiet town on both banks of the Gilão river near the Spanish border. Your guide walks you up to the ruined castle walls and the church of Santa Maria do Castelo, then into the old water tower, where the Camera Obscura projects a live view of the rooftops, bridges and salt pans onto a white dish.

Afternoon

Lunch is a sit-down meal of local fish or a cataplana by the river. In the afternoon we take the small ferry from Quatro Águas to Ilha de Tavira, a long sand island in the Ria Formosa Natural Park, for an hour or two on the beach and a walk on the boardwalks.

Evening

Back in town there is time to rest before a farewell dinner together, a short walk from the hotel.

Included

• Guided walk of Tavira: the castle walls and Santa Maria do Castelo
• The Camera Obscura
• Sit-down lunch in Tavira
• Ferry to Ilha de Tavira and time on the beach
• Farewell dinner

Tavira to Faro and home

Tavira to Faro Airport

• Breakfast
• Drive about 30 min

Morning

The morning is free for a last walk in Tavira: the market by the river opens early, the old bridge over the Gilão is quiet before the cafés fill, and the salt pans east of town are good for birds, with flamingos often feeding in the shallows. Late morning we load the vehicle for the half-hour drive west along the coast to Faro Airport (FAO).

Afternoon

If your flight leaves later in the afternoon, we can stop first in Faro's walled old town, the Cidade Velha, for a coffee in the square by the cathedral. Your guide sees you to the terminal and checks your flight before saying goodbye. Book a flight leaving after about 1 pm to travel with the group. If you need to leave earlier, we arrange a separate transfer at no extra cost, and if you want to stay longer in the Algarve or go back to Lisbon by train, ask us when you book.

Included

• Drop-off at Faro Airport (FAO)