Lagos, Portugal

During my summer abroad program in Spain many years ago, we took a lot of weekend adventures. One of the top wish-list weekend spots was Lagos, Portugal. Some friends had visited the year before & raved about the town. We never made it to Portugal that summer and it's been on my "some day" list since then.

When our friends found an exchange condo in the Algarve, I knew Lagos needed its own day. We spent the day walking the town, visiting the beaches and taking a grotto tour. 

Lagos' infamous claim to fame is that it was the site of Europe's first slave market (built in 1444). We walked by the market on the way to the water. We had heard the grotto tours in Lagos were worth seeing.

We asked for a guide who spoke English. Our hardworking gentleman knew about 4 words in English.  He would bark out "Look, elephant" or "Look, camel" at every rock we passed.

As an aside, I bought a waterproof camera before we left on the trip. It was the BEST purchase! I took over half the trip photos with the camera because I didn't want to take my good camera to the beach. While I bought a protective case for my phone, I didn't want sand in the phone (plus I was always taking the phone out of the case to use it). 

A tour is really the only way to see inside the caves. Next time, I think I would do a kayak tour (though there seemed to be some tension between our boat captain and the kayak tour guides - I don't know who has senior rights to the caves, but the boats seem to think they do).

The coastline is the biggest attraction in most of the southern cities we visited. Each town looked so different and it felt appropriate to spend our time marveling at the natural beauty of each town.

We found our tour guide by walking along the piers in town. I read that some tours allow you to swim, but we didn't see any swimmers along our path.

The photos, of course, can't capture the true beauty of these rocks and caves.

After about an hour navigating the rocks, we grabbed lunch in town. It is a town full of tasty restaurants. With a lot of  British tourists, we found a wonderful Indian restaurant. Thankfully, the meal was followed by a very LONG walk to the beach.

In most towns, there are several beaches but they are not connected and usually involve a long, steep hike to the water.

But, it was worth it to spend a few hours relaxing in paradise.  We quickly realized that each town had a unique set of souvenirs - if you like something, don't expect to see it in every city. We ended up making a shopping/dinner stop on the way home from another adventure. It was perfect though. Lagos has such great energy, we were happy to share another meal (and sangria) in this town.