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The Earl of Essex was one of the earlier English visitors to Faro, calling in on the city in 1596. Unfortunately, Portugal was then ruled by Phillip II of Spain and, since the English were at war with Spain at the time, Essex and his band of marauding privateers merely sacked the place, set fire to it, and left. While today’s English tourists are noticeably less destructive, attitudes haven’t changed much in 400 years – as the gateway to, and capital of, the Algarve region, Faro tends to be dismissed as a place to go through, rather than stay in. And that’s a real shame because, despite the undoubted merits of Portugal’s southern coast as a whole (see Around the city, below), this little city is one of Europe’s undiscovered gems, with a wide and unusually diverse range of attractions. For the culturally inclined, the Cathedral, a delightful little Italianate theatre, a collection of excellent museums, and several art galleries beckon. For the gourmet, scores of restaurants specialise in the freshest of seafood and in rich game dishes. If you’re after the great outdoors, the Parque Natural da Ria Formosa, is unlike any other site in the whole of Europe. And if you simply want to unwind, there are some glorious beaches, a picture-postcard harbour marina, a compact old quarter, and dozens of cafés and bars in which to while away an hour or three. Faro certainly has a rich and eventful history. Its location at the mouth of the Ria Formosa made it a perfect trading post, and under the Romans – when it was known as Ossonoba – it became a flourishing port. The Moors were driven out in the 13th Century, the English sacked it in the 16th, and an earthquake all but destroyed it in the 18th. The destruction was never total, however, and so Faro has become something of a time capsule. Roman remains and Moorish relics abound. The city’s “golden age” is reflected in splendidly baroque churches, while its rather humbler heritage as a sardine- and tuna-fishing port is celebrated in the excellent maritime museum. Bang up to date, Faro’s highly-original Science Alive Centre is described as an “interactive study centre promoting scientific and technological awareness”. Of course the Algarve is renowned for its beaches, its luxury resorts, and its 30-plus championship golf courses. However, visitors would be well-advised to spend a day or two – or more – exploring the region’s capital. Just don’t sack the place.
Take a leisurely breakfast among the historic photographs in the Café Aliança – English newspapers are on sale, so you can catch up on events back home – before taking a harbourside stroll to the cathedral and the Episcopal palace. If modern art is your thing, the Galeria de Arte Trem is nearby, but then so is the archaeological museum with its superb Roman floor mosaic, an oddball collection of Moorish oil lamps as well as a gallery full of 16th century Italian paintings. Take an early lunch at the atmospheric bar-restaurant Aqui d’El Rei, next to the delightful little chapel of Nossa Senhora do Repouso, and then spend an afternoon exploring the Parque Natural da Ria Formosa. This extraordinary landscape of lagoons, saltpans, marshes and sand-dunes extends for nearly 40 miles along the coast, and is a sanctuary for an astonishing array of flora and fauna. It’s also the site of five 1,800-year-old Roman salting tanks – the salted fish was “exported” throughout the Roman Empire, and of the Portuguese Water Dog Kennels. The large, shaggy and very friendly dogs are excellent swimmers and divers, not least because they have – uniquely – webbed paws. Almost extinct at one stage, the breed was saved at the Ria Formosa kennels. Dogs and bones go together, so head back into town and make straight for the Carmelite church (Igreja do Carmo). A spectacular example of baroque excess, with gold-leaf seemingly everywhere, the church is better known for its Bone Chapel (Capela dos Ossos) whose walls are line with the skulls and bones of more than 1,000 monks! There are scores of restaurants to choose from in Faro, but the Mesa dos Mouros (see Eating Out, above) is one of the most highly rated, not least because of its location back in the cathedral square. Alternatively, take your pick from any number of restaurants on the Praça Dom Francisco Gomes, and enjoy a fresh fish supper whilst looking out over the picturesque harbour marina. If you’re up to it, Faro’s nightlife district is right behind you, in the area around Rua Conselheiro Bivar and Rua do Prior. Leave the beach till tomorrow!
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No shortage of choice here with plenty of four- and five-star top properties usually featuring golf courses, leisure facilities and excellent restaurants. Many of the hotels are locally-run, independent properties, such as the four-star Hotel Faro and the four-star Hotel Eva. Top hotel in the area is the Monte do Casal, an 18th Century country house property in the hill village of Estoí. Substantially upgraded in 2004, the property is a member of the Small Luxury Hotels of the World consortium (www.slh.com). A full range of accommodation is available on +44(0)871 900 8297. www.flybehotels.com The Portuguese National Tourist Office also has further information on accommodation. Call +44 (0)870 355 1212. www.visitportugal.com By car: Explore the city and the countryside in comfort and style at great prices! Get the best deal by checking Flybe's partner Avis for the best available car hire rates at www.flybe.com/avis By road: Aeroporto do Faro (tel: +351 289 800 800) is just six kilometres west from the city centre. Follow the EN125 highway straight into town. Contact Flybe’s car rental partner Avis for the best available car hire rates. www.ana-aeroportos.pt By bus or coach: Operated by EVA, the Aerobus takes only 13 minutes to the city centre bus station and is free to flight ticket holders. It operates every half hour between 07.30 and 23.30. Two local buses also serve the city centre. By taxi: The taxi fare into town is around €10, with a €2 price hike at night, at weekends, and on public holidays. A ten per cent tip is generally expected. Central Faro covers little more than one square kilometre, so the public transport system is all but superfluous. Taxis are plentiful and relatively inexpensive (€2.50 to start with, and then around €2 per kilometre). Buses are the least expensive way of travelling to other centres along the coastal strip, but services can be infrequent and erratic. Just to complicate matters, bus stops (paragem) apply to buses heading in both directions, so the stop may not be on the same side of the road as the bus! More comfortable coaches are operated by EVA Coaches (tel: +351 289 899 700) and Renex (tel: +351 289 812 980). From Faro’s rail station (tel: +351 289 801 726), Caminho de Ferro Portuguese (CP) operates east to Vila Real de Santo Antonio and west to Lagos. Bird watching: If you want to see the Algarve’s native wildlife first hand visit the Ria Formosa Nature Reserve. Situated on the coast, this 60km strip of protected land is home to a variety of birds and coastal animals as well as preserved Roman and Arab sites and landmarks. Depending on the time of year visitors will also be able to see different species of migratory birds as well as others that have made the area their breeding ground. With spectacular sand dunes, lagoons, mudflats, marshes and a myriad of small islands to explore there is plenty to take in at this unique collection of ecosystems. Tel: +351 289 704 134 or +351 289 704 135 (Centro de Educação Ambiental de Marim) Camping: With over 280 days of sunshine beaming down on Faro and officially designated campsites dotted across the Algarve, camping won’t be accompanied by the tradition of getting totally soaked and falling asleep on a tree root. Those who want to take to their tents instead of a hotel will find a range of sites and services across the area. The closest site to Faro is the Campismo da Paria de Faro. The site is located near a mini-market, a bar and a restaurant, so those who crave modern amenities won’t have to worry. Tel: +351 289 817 876
Golf: Faro’s location offers excellent year-round golf opportunities. There are six courses surrounding Faro and a further 23 across the Algarve. Golfers have been travelling to the area for the last three decades to make the most of the weather and modern courses. The Ocean course at Vale de Lobo looks out to sea and is comprised of narrow fairways and a sea breeze that will make play more challenging. Tel: +351 289 353 535 The San Lorenzo Golf Club at Quinta do Lago is a par 72 masterpiece sited within the Parque Natural da Ria Formosa. It is owned and run by the Le Meridien Dona Filipa Hotel (tel: 00351 289 357 200) and is open to visitors, although priority is given to hotel guests. Other options include the Quinta do Lago Campo de Golfe (tel: +351 289 390 700) and the Pinheiros Altos (tel: +351 289 394 392) courses – both par 72s and both in the same neck of the woods as the San Lorenzo, while the Royal Course at Vale de Lobo (tel: +351 289 353 535) and the Old Course at Vilamoura (tel: +351 289 310 341) are only marginally farther out. Water park: The Slide and Splash water park has something for everyone. If you’re looking for excitement, try one of the many water chutes, slides and rides, or if you need a rest take a break at one of the many entertainment areas or the ice cream parlour. The park caters for children of all ages as well as adults, with child specific rides and areas. At the end of the day you can get a bite to eat at the restaurant as well as a souvenir to remember the day by. www.slidesplash.com Portugal’s coastal areas offer beautiful properties and locations to invest in. The Algarve is the most popular region for those looking to invest in holiday homes and apartments. As a consequence, property prices in this region as well as similar ones on the coast are marginally higher than the rest of Portugal and it is also worth mentioning that properties in Portugal are also marginally higher than those in neighbouring Spain. The continuous improvement that Portugal’s infrastructure is currently undergoing has opened up many new markets for those looking to invest and low-cost airlines, such as Flybe, have made the region even more accessible than in previous years. Those seeking to invest in Faro should be aware that the Algarve is the busiest and most developed area of Portugal but buying properties in this area is more complex than other parts of Europe. For example, mortgage debts and local taxes are property based, so new owners must make sure the previous owners have cleared everything prior to buying. Buyers should also watch out for the commission that estate agents could charge, in some cases as much as 10% of the property price although haggling is commonplace.
For those with pressing tee-times or an over-powering urge to hit the beach, even a lightning tour of Faro’s prime sights is well worth the effort. Sé Catehedral : Start off with the cathedral (Sé) which, like many such establishments, has had a somewhat chequered history. It was started in the 13th century, and parts of the original building still remain, but it was a lengthy construction job and so the cathedral is an object lesson in Portuguese ecclesiastical architecture through the ages. Check out the intricately-carved altar piece in the chancel (17th century), the baroque gilt altars in the side chapels (18th century), the gothic vaulting (15th century), the azulejo tiles which line the Chapel of Our Lady of the Rosary (17th century), and the collection of statuary (18th century). Paço Episcopal: Amble across the square to the Episcopal Palace (Paço Episcopal) which, despite being nothing special in architectural terms, houses a fantastic collection of colourful azulejo tiles. Museum Arqueológico: Follow what remains of the city walls round to the south – the Byzantine pentagonal towers are a much-talked-about oddity – and then take in the archaeological museum (Museum Arqueológico) Open 10.00-18.00 Tuesday and Friday, 14.30-18.00 Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday. Rated one of the best in the Algarve, the museum is set within the cloisters of a former convent and houses, among other things, a massive and beautifully-preserved Roman floor mosaic. The locals’ leisurely approach to mealtimes – lunch can last three hours, and dinner even longer – means that the club scene doesn’t really get going much before midnight, so ‘nightlife’ very quickly turns into ‘early morning life’. Faro’s trendiest clubs and bars are primarily concentrated in a single block, bounded by Rua de Prior and the pedestrianised Rua Conselheiro Bivar, a stone’s throw from the harbour.
The hottest spots are the Fashion Kafé (tel: +351 289 825 781) and the Millennium III Club (tel: +351 289 823 628), both on the Rua de Prior, but serious disco-goers head 30km east to Tavira, where the Discoteka Ubi is reckoned to be one of the liveliest in the whole of the region – and it stays open to 06.00hrs on a Sunday morning, so departing revellers can simply head straight for breakfast and the beach. For an altogether more sophisticated experience, the T-Club at Quinta do Lago, around 10km to the west, is a stratospherically-upmarket cocktail joint (essentially, it is a vast designer patio encircling tropical gardens) where the jetset sip their colourful concoctions and pick at Japanese nibbles. It’s certainly chic, but carry plenty of credit cards or cash. Entertainment of a more sedate nature can be found at Faro’s Lethes Theatre, which is the venue for classical music concerts as well as stage plays, or one of Faro’s many cinemas. Faro’s attraction as a destination in its own right is only enhanced by its proximity to a host of other Algarvean delights – from sleepy hilltop villages to bustling international resorts, and from deserted coves to action-packed theme parks. Tavira: To the east, straddling the river Gilão, lies Tavira, reckoned to be one of the most charming small towns on the Algarve – not least because it boasts an improbable 40 churches. A little farther on, the coastal hamlet of Cacela Velha is an unspoiled village dominated by a forbidding 18th Century fortress. Olha: Closer to Faro, Olha is a thriving fishing port with seafood restaurants to match, while the tiny village of Estói, due north of Faro, boasts a pink rococo palace and a superbly-preserved roman villa. Loulé, to the northwest, is a major handicraft centre with a Saturday morning market to die for. Albufeira: To the west of Faro, Albufeira is Portugal’s most popular holiday destination – the Zoomarine theme park, with its spectacular water shows featuring dolphins, seals and sea lions, and is a must for children – while Portimão, a little farther out, is renowned for its riverfront restaurants. A few kilometres inland, overlooking groves of citrus and almond trees, Silves – the Moorish capital – features a spectacular red sandstone castle. Cabo de São Vicente: Some 100km from Faro at the western end of the Algarve lies Cabo de São Vicente. Lighthouse apart, there’s not a lot to see here – not a lot, that is except the Atlantic Ocean. Once thought to have been the end of the earth (it is the most westerly point on mainland Europe), Cape St Vincent is a superbly dramatic promontory from which to watch the sun go down. And, just maybe, raise a glass of medronho in the process. Unsurprisingly, there is little commercial activity in Faro – or indeed, in the Algarve as a whole – that is not either tourism- or golf-related, or both. However, the University of the Algarve (tel: +351 289 800 100) is internationally-renowned for its work on marine and environmental science and technologies, with extensive research programmes in the fields of ocean sciences, environmental chemistry and – somewhat incongruously – horticultural technology. www.ualg.pt A school of tourism and hotel management is attached to the university.
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The Algarve is rightly famed for its glorious beaches, but too many people overlook the fact that Faro is just as well endowed with vast swathes of golden sand. The main Praia de Faro is on the Ilha de Faro, a giant sandpit stretching for several miles along the coast opposite the airport. Immensely popular with local residents, it can become uncomfortably crowded on summer weekends, when it’s time to head for the Praia do Farol. What a difference a couple of letters can make! Although there are obvious similarities – unbroken expanses of golden beach on a sandpit island – Farol is completely cut off from the mainland, and the 45-minute ferry trip means that it is less convenient for locals looking to catch just a couple of hours of sun. But visitors with time on their hands will love it. |
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