Faro

Faro is the gateway to the Algarve, and the quietest town on that coast. The old centre keeps inside its walls, behind the Arco da Vila and its stork nests, a grid of white lanes, tiled facades and terraces serving clams cooked in a copper cataplana. Behind the Igreja do Carmo, a chapel lined entirely with bones gives the place its darker side. In front of town, the Ria Formosa Natural Park spreads out a lagoon of mudflats and sand islands where flamingos stop over: Tavira Island Beach is reached by ferry, Barril Beach by a miniature train crossing the marsh to a graveyard of old tuna anchors. Westward the coast changes entirely and turns to ochre cliff, drilled with arches and caves, at Marinha Beach and at Benagil Cave, open to the sky through a round hole in its roof. At the far end, the cliffs of Cape St Vincent drop into the Atlantic, where the known world once stopped.