Things to Do in Albufeira

The Old Town and the Tunnel Through the Cliff

Albufeira sits on a cliff, and the Old Town sits on top of it. The lanes are cobbled, steep and white, they open onto Largo Engenheiro Duarte Pacheco at the centre, and they end at the edge of a drop with the Atlantic below.

Getting down to the water from that square is the piece of engineering that defines the town. A tunnel 20 metres long cuts through the rock and delivers you onto Praia do Peneco, which half the signs still call Praia do Túnel. Next to it the Elevador do Peneco does the same job in a lift. On the other side of the headland an outdoor escalator carries you up to the Miradouro do Pau da Bandeira, the terrace that looks down on Praia dos Pescadores and the fishing boats pulled up on it. None of the three costs anything.

The rest of the Old Town takes an hour. The 18th-century parish church of Nossa Senhora da Conceição holds azulejo panels and gilded altarpieces behind a plain front. The Museu Municipal de Arqueologia charges €3.06 for Roman and Moorish material dug up locally, opens 10:30 to 16:30 from October to May and 14:00 to 20:00 from June to September, and is closed on Monday. The Galeria de Arte Pintor Samora Barros sits on the south side of the main square and is free.

Ten Beaches and How They Differ

The beaches nearest the Old Town are the busiest, and the ones worth the twenty-minute drive are the ones the boat trips pass. Praia dos Pescadores and Praia do Peneco are the town beaches, reachable on foot, backed by restaurants and full by ten in July. Praia da Oura and Praia dos Alemães belong to the hotel strip east of the centre.

West is where the coast gets interesting. São Rafael, Coelha, Castelo and Arrifes are coves cut into ochre rock, each with a stack or an arch offshore, each with a car park that fills early. Galé is longer and flatter, which is why the surf school runs there. Salgados is the outlier: a wide open beach behind a lagoon and a boardwalk, with almost nothing built on it.

Free Things to Do in Albufeira

A day here costs nothing if you want it to. The town spent public money on the parts most places charge for: the cliff access, the viewpoints and the promenade.

• Walk down through the cliff tunnel to Praia do Peneco and back up in the Elevador do Peneco
• Ride the escalator to the Miradouro do Pau da Bandeira for the view over Praia dos Pescadores
• Sit out an evening on Largo Engenheiro Duarte Pacheco while the street performers work the square
• Follow the Salgados boardwalk over the lagoon and count the herons and flamingos on it
• Browse the Caliços market on the 1st or 3rd Tuesday of the month without buying anything
• Visit the Museu Municipal de Arqueologia on a Sunday before 11:30, when entry is free
• Watch the fishing boats unload at the Porto de Abrigo harbour beside the marina
• Take the clifftop path east from Praia da Oura towards Santa Eulália at sunset

The Marina and the Boats to Benagil

Marina de Albufeira sits about two kilometres west of the Old Town and looks like nothing else on this coast: apartment blocks painted in flat primary colours around two harbours, the working Porto de Abrigo on one side and the pleasure marina on the other. There is a bowling alley and a karting track in among the restaurants.

Almost every boat trip leaves from here, and they all point the same way, west towards Benagil. The cave is the reason. Sea has hollowed a chamber out of the cliff with a hole in its roof, and the sun drops a column of light through it onto the sand inside. Portuguese regulations now hold boats inside for only a few minutes, there is often a queue at the entrance, and the Maritime Police close it outright when the swell builds, in which case you see it from the water outside.

Dolphins are the second reason people book. Bottlenose and common dolphins work this coast all year and the crews go looking for them, but they are wild animals: the operators state plainly that sightings are not guaranteed and there is no refund if none appear. Roughly speaking, mornings are calmer. Afternoon wind is the norm along the Algarve and it puts short chop and spray on the surface, which matters more on a fast boat than on a catamaran.

How to Spend One Day in Albufeira

One day covers the town properly if you start on the water. Book a morning boat, because the sea is flattest before noon and the afternoon sailings take the wind.

Be at the marina by 9:30 for a 10:00 departure. You are back on land by 12:30 with the whole coast west of town behind you. Walk or take the Giro bus into the Old Town, eat somewhere off Rua Cândido dos Reis rather than on the square, then go down the tunnel and swim off Praia do Peneco while the afternoon heat holds.

Come back up in the lift around five, take the escalator to the Miradouro do Pau da Bandeira and stay for the light going off the cliffs at Praia dos Pescadores. Dinner in the Old Town, and if you still have energy, the Strip is a fifteen-minute taxi east. If you have two days, give the second one to the countryside: a jeep safari or the quad bikes get you into the cork forest and the villages, which is a different Algarve entirely.

Albufeira with Kids

The town beaches do most of the work, since Peneco and Coelha both shelve gently and stay calm. Beyond that, three things carry a family day.

Zoomarine at Guia is the big one, ten minutes inland. The $33 ticket covers the dolphin and sea lion presentations, an aquarium with more than 20 ecosystems, the 4D cinema, the Rapid River rafts and the Zoomarine Beach, which is a wave pool with slides and real sand around it. Children under 1 metre tall enter free. The Dolphin Emotions swim is the one thing not included and it is priced separately at the gate.

The catamaran is the boat to pick with small children: it is stable, it has a top deck and toilets, and the swim stop is ten minutes in flat water. Skip the semi-rigid boat, which bans under-5s outright. The surf school at Galé takes children from ten, and reviewers regularly bring 10-year-olds through the full two hours.

For Adults: The Strip, the Old Town and the Dress Code

Albufeira runs two separate night scenes. The Old Town squares are the softer one, with bars around Largo Engenheiro Duarte Pacheco and down Rua Cândido dos Reis. The Strip is Avenida Dr. Francisco Sá Carneiro in Montechoro, a straight kilometre of clubs and neon about three kilometres east of the Old Town, and it does not really start until midnight.

One rule catches visitors out, and it is the thing people search for most. Albufeira's code of conduct bans swimwear and bare chests on the streets, in public places and on public transport, with fines from €300 to €1,500, rising towards €1,800 for full nudity. It applies to the walk back from the beach, not to the beach itself. Topless sunbathing on the sand and swimwear at the pool are unaffected. Put a shirt and shorts on before you leave the sand and the rule never touches you.

The same code covers drinking alcohol in the street and public urination, which tells you what the council was actually aiming at when it wrote the thing.

Market Days Around Albufeira

The big open-air market runs at Caliços, on the northern edge of town, and it is the one people mean when they ask about market day. Produce, olives, oil, wine, fish, clothing, ceramics and a food court of grilled sardines and bifanas. Go early: by eleven it is shoulder to shoulder and the parking is gone.

Day Trips Worth the Drive

Albufeira sits in the middle of the Algarve, which makes it a good base and a poor place to stay put. Four trips are worth a day each.

Silves is half an hour north and holds the best-preserved Moorish castle in the region, red sandstone walls above an old cathedral, with the Arade river below. Paderne Castle is closer, inside the municipality itself: a 12th-century Moorish fort in ruins on a hilltop, and one of the seven castles drawn on the Portuguese flag. Lagos is forty minutes west for Ponta da Piedade, and Sagres beyond it ends at Cabo de São Vicente, the southwestern tip of mainland Europe and, for a long time, the edge of the known world.

Walkers should take the Seven Hanging Valleys Trail, which runs about 6 km one way from Praia da Marinha, a thirty-minute drive from Albufeira, along the clifftop past the Benagil cave from above. Wine drinkers have Adega do Cantor near Guia, the winery the British singer Cliff Richard helped found, which is the estate the tasting tours visit.

Getting Around Without a Car

You do not need a car in Albufeira itself, and parking in the Old Town in August is a reason not to have one.

The Giro city bus covers the town on five lines, Green, Blue, Red 1, Red 2 and Orange, over 168 stops linking the centre, the marina, Montechoro, Oura, Santa Eulália and the train station. Buy on board and one zone costs €2.10, two zones €2.75. The rechargeable pass card costs €3 and drops any journey to €1.65, which pays for itself on the second day.

• Faro Airport is 45 km away: a transfer runs about 45 minutes, the airport bus is cheaper and slower
• The train station is at Ferreiras, outside town, linked by Giro line 3 and by taxi
• Giro line 3 is the one that connects the Old Town with the marina
• Most tours here include hotel pickup: the jeep safari, the winery trip and the full-day western Algarve tour all collect you
• Taxis and Uber both work; the Old Town is pedestrianised, so you are dropped at the edge
• Car hire starts around €10 a day off-season for a manual, and you want one for the western coves

Albufeira in December and the Quiet Months

Winter here is mild and thin. January averages a high of 16.2°C, which is jacket-and-sunshine weather rather than beach weather, and December takes 96 mm of rain, the wettest month of the year.

What changes is what stays open. The Strip empties out and a good share of Montechoro shuts until spring. The Old Town keeps running because locals live there. Boat trips still sail on calm days through the winter, but the calendars thin, cancellations for sea conditions get common, and the swim stops stop being appealing at a sea temperature around 16°C.

The trade is the coast to yourself. The clifftop walks, the viewpoints, Silves, Paderne and the markets all work better in December than in August, and accommodation costs a fraction of the summer rate. Come for the town and the countryside, not for the water.