Algarve Region: Faro
We traveled to Faro via train. It was direct, and efficient. And, interestingly, your passport acted as your ticket. When I purchased the tickets online, it asked for passport information. This was not unusual. The Portuguese rails, like the Spanish, give assigned seats as part of the purchase price (in Germany and most of the rest of Europe, a reserved seat costs an extra 2-5E). On this train, they simply confirmed with the passport that the person sitting in the seat was the one assigned to it. Nothing scanned or clipped, just checked off their list.
Our train tickets were from Lisboa Oriente, the originating station for the train, which was a forty-minute Uber ride from Caparica. According to the Uber driver, we could have caught the same train from a closer station. It was a crowded train, and with lots of luggage, it was good to get on early. We had a moments pause en route; one of the groups who’d been talking of going to Faro got off at an earlier stop called “Tunes”, along with a lot of other people. Since our train said Faro was the destination, I was not concerned that we needed to change (and we did not). I’m not sure why so many people got off in Tunes, it’s a small town.
Faro is the main city of the Algarve region (the southern-most portion of Portugal), with the largest international airport and connections in the Algarve. The overall city is much bigger than the old town area would suggest (about 61,000 permanent residents). Public buses go all over, including the beach on the closest barrier island, and roundtrip to the beach is 4.7E pp from the old town.
Going to the other islands requires a ferry ride (or your own boat), and runs 5-12Epp.
The area is also the home of the White Stork, with large nests perched on almost any available tower.
They are year-round residents protected by the locals who consider killing or harming the birds bad luck. For those interested in birding, the area is rich in diversity.
As tourists, we pretty much “failed”. Most of the tourist attractions were closed for the season (even the Cathedral was closed for renovations), and it was just too cold and windy to do the boat tours of the islands. The only available museums were of modern art, so we gave those a pass.
We took the bus to the beach and ambled along a good portion of the boardwalk provided for nature trails.
We walked and re-walked the cobbled pedestrian areas,
stopping in for coffees and evening glasses of the local dry natural fizzy vinho verde wine before the wind whipped up as the sun set.
Outside heaters at restaurants were a rarity, but luckily, the inside of restaurants were not crowded. Late November is likely not the best time to visit.
As a general observation of the Portuguese, they are very committed to recycling with deep bins placed over the cities, including glass, organic materials, and plastic. Reminders of why we need to recycle are sometimes posted as murals.
We’re heading back into Spain for another ten days before flying on to Panama to get warm.
What a beautiful light on that last photo. Yes, I agree with you, a lovely photo.