Exploring Albufeira, Portugal: Old Town, Beaches and Tips
Albufeira sits on the Algarve coast about 250 kilometres south of Lisbon, and roughly half the people walking its old town streets on any July evening are British or Irish. The town has two faces: a cliff-top old quarter of whitewashed houses and a strip of high-rise hotels and bars stretching east towards Olhos de Água. Exploring Albufeira in Portugal means deciding early which one you've come for, because they sit about three kilometres apart and serve different appetites.
The old town is compact enough to cross in ten minutes, though the hills will slow you down. Streets climb steeply from the praça and several of them end in flights of tiled steps that look decorative until you're carrying shopping up them. Largo Engenheiro Duarte Pacheco, the main square, fills with restaurant touts by six. Their patter is cheerful and relentless.
Buses run from the main terminal at Rua Paul Harris down to the old town, though walking takes about twenty-five minutes from the strip. Taxis charge a flat six to eight euros for that trip after midnight. Tipping isn't expected in cafés. A bica, the small strong coffee, costs around 80 cents at the counter and closer to 1.50 if you sit down outside.
Beaches within reach of the old town
Praia dos Pescadores is the town beach, reached by a tunnel from the square. It's sheltered and convenient, which means it packs out hard by eleven in August. Fishermen still land their catch at the western end most mornings, though you'll need to be there before seven to see it.
Praia da Oura, further east, draws a younger crowd and has the louder music. The walk down involves 97 steps, and I counted them twice because someone insisted it was more. The climb back up is the part nobody mentions in the brochures: it's a genuine slog at two in the afternoon with a bag and a damp towel. There's a lift at the eastern end of the strip that saves you some of it, but it closes at eight.
For something quieter, Praia de São Rafael, about four kilometres west, has a smaller cove and fewer people. The rock formations there are the ones on most of the postcards. A taxi costs around ten euros each way, and there's no bus that runs late enough to get you back after dinner.
Beyond the strip: exploring Albufeira in Portugal properly
The town's real advantage is its position. You can be at a different beach every day for a fortnight without driving more than twenty minutes. Zoomarine, the marine park inland near Guia, takes about fifteen minutes by car and suits families with children under twelve. The sand sculpture exhibition at Pescadores, if it's running, is worth the five-euro entry and takes fifteen minutes to walk through.
The old town's archaeological museum sits in a building near the clock tower and costs three euros. It's small: two rooms, mostly Roman pottery and a model of the town before the 1755 earthquake. Whether the upper floor is open depends on the season, and I'm not certain it opens at all in January. The attendant was friendly, and the visit took twenty minutes.
The marina, a short walk west, is where the boat trips leave. Dolphin-watching tours run around 35 euros for two hours and see dolphins perhaps seven times out of ten, according to the operators themselves. The cave tours to Benagil, further east, are the better bet, though the famous dome has become so crowded that boats queue to get inside it.
Food is the reliable pleasure. Grilled sardines at a tasca cost eight to ten euros with bread, salad and a jug of house wine. Cataplana, the copper-pot seafood stew, feeds two for about 30. Restaurants on the square charge double what the ones a street back charge for the same dish, and the quality doesn't improve with the view.
What nobody warns you about is the parking. In July and August, the multi-storey by the old town fills by half past nine in the morning, and the surface lots charge five euros a day without guaranteeing you'll find a space. Drivers circle the same three streets for twenty minutes in a state of quiet fury. If you're staying in the old town, leave the car at the hotel and walk.
August heat is another matter. Temperatures touch 35 degrees by mid-afternoon, and the whitewashed streets bounce the light back at you. Shops close between one and three, and the town feels half-asleep until the evening. Locals eat late. If you sit down for dinner at seven, you'll be eating alone among empty tables.
The Strip itself, Avenida Sá Carneiro, is something you should at least walk down once. It's a kilometre of bars, kebab shops and neon, and on a Saturday night in summer the noise runs at full volume until three. Two-for-one cocktails are advertised in permanent marker on A-boards. The atmosphere is good-natured rather than threatening, and the people-watching is excellent. It's also completely possible to avoid the place entirely if you stay west of the marina.
I met a couple from Leeds who'd been coming for eleven years and had never once set foot on the Strip. They booked the same apartment near the marina, ate at the same three restaurants, and considered the whole thing settled. Their advice was to book restaurants in advance for Friday and Saturday, even in September.
Trains from Albufeira station, which is actually at Ferreiras, six kilometres north of town, run west to Lagos and east to Faro. Lagos takes about an hour and a quarter. Faro takes forty minutes. The station is a taxi ride from the centre, which catches out people who buy a rail pass and assume the train stops in town.
Cash still matters. Several of the smaller tascas and the market stalls near the tunnel don't take cards, and the nearest cashpoint on a Sunday afternoon can involve a queue of fifteen people. There's a multibanco by the main square that was out of service for the whole of one week in June, and nobody seemed to know when it would come back.
October is the sweet spot. The sea stays warm enough to swim, the crowds thin out, and hotel rates drop by around 40 percent from August peaks. Some of the beach bars close for the season at the end of September, though you'll still find plenty open. Rain arrives in November and the town shuts down more than you'd expect. In February, half the restaurants are shuttered and the wind off the Atlantic makes the cliff walk unpleasant.
One last thing worth knowing: the escalators connecting the old town to the beach level run in one direction only after ten in the morning, so the walk back up is on foot. Locals treat this as obvious. Visitors stand at the bottom for a minute or two, pressing the button, before working it out.
A small yellow funicular, installed in 2023, connects the praça to the marina side and runs until eight in the evening, three euros each way.
Further reading: Albufeira on Wikipedia.
