On our fifth trip to Portugal (one, just a day’s stopover en route to Spain), we visited, for the first time, the Algarve. Knowing that this region is generally filled with tourists and has ocean-front high-rises lining the beaches of some of the towns, we restricted our travels to the Sagres and Tavira areas, the west and east of Portugal's southern coast. Sagres still has a small active fishing industry, with small, colorfully painted boats in its harbor.

A pleasant 6 km walk from Sagres, along the cliffs above the coast (some on the road), is Cape St. Vincent, the southwestern-most point of mainland Europe. While the fort is not particularly impressive, the cape’s large flat area provides a delightful walk in a park punctuated with signs about the flora and fauna as well as with fishermen tossing their lines from the cliffs into the sea below.

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