THEThe lives and almonds have been harvested, the grapes have long been fermenting in barrels, gnarled fig trees are leafless and bare. Instead, orange trees, oleanders and hibiscus shine. The Algarve, south-western Europe’s popular sunny region, is now pleasantly spring-like in winter with daily highs of around 20 degrees.
The pictures at this time of the year are more genuine than ever. Storks clatter in capital nests on electricity pylons, farmers clatter along on creaking tractors. In villages, there are laundry grids in cobblestone streets, on beaches such as Praia Grande near Armação de Pêra, the number of seagulls far exceeds that of visitors.
Suddenly the wind blows a mask in front of your feet. Oh yes, there was something. Corona has also reached the Algarve. The Robert Koch Institute has now classified the entire Portuguese mainland as a risk area, which is why it has received a travel warning from the Foreign Office.
There is no travel ban, but vacationers have to go into quarantine for ten days following their return to Germany, which can be shortened by a negative corona test.
Visit to the doctor with chicken
José Castilho, the director of Caldas de Monchique, the only thermal complex in the Algarve, identified “more humanity and solidarity” during the crisis – and a renaissance of the old bartering, as practiced by his family decades ago.
“When a pig was slaughtered at home,” he says, “we exchanged meat for vegetables and potatoes back then.” Today, says Castilho, “one can do an eye examination with a chicken”. Or treatment at the dentist with home-made mulberry brandy.
The water is too cold for swimming, but you can take a walk on the beach
Quelle: Getty Images/imageBROKER RF
What does that tell us? In the south of Portugal the clocks run differently – not only because of the one-hour time difference to Central Europe.
Felsalgarve, that’s the name of the western part of the region. Those who like it bizarre throw themselves at the picture-book views near Lagos: around the lighthouse-covered “Point of Mercy”, Ponta da Piedade. Cliff walls once morest which breakers crash, natural stone arches through which the water shoots, rock towers, modeled into megasculptures by the wind and waves. The paths lead to unprotected flanks, where the last agaves seek a hold and the incorrigible play with their lives for selfies.
Beaches according to your needs
Life in the town of Lagos moves in calm waters. From the point of view of the family-run restaurants, which only serve sardines and sea bass at a few tables, it is probably all too quiet. The fish come freshly caught from the local fleet. “We have 50 fishing boats,” says city guide Sónia Duarte, “but business is bad for fishermen in Corona times.”
The otherwise lively fish market is a dreary reflection of itself. The Santo António Church, on the other hand, is a guarantee of constant radiance. The baroque carving has splendid gold leaf coatings. In the reliefs, Guide Duarte points to an angel with a beard in the midst of pleasant tourist emptiness. Normally, Duarte explains, angels are gender-neutral, but this one flaunts his facial hair and thigh muscles as if he had hardened himself from heavenly bodybuilding.
Fortification walls in Lagos
Quelle: Getty Images
The search for the most beautiful beaches is what drives an Algarve visitor even in the cold season, but how do you define “beautiful”? Beachwalking, lonely and miles long, is possible in Alvor and across from Lagos at Meia Praia. Burgau and Salema are good addresses for surfing.
In contrast, the tiny Albandeira beach is a stroke of luck for landscape lovers. The cliff-bound bay stretches out in a horseshoe shape, and at high tide the sand sinks into the Atlantic. The sunset bathes the scenery in gold.
Warning lights and thermometers
Access to the bay is strictly regulated due to the pandemic. The installed corona warning light at the entrance shows “high occupancy”, although only one couple is turtling on the rocks above.
The corona pitfalls continue in the hotel in the beach town of Luz. The body temperature measurement at check-in shows 32.7 degrees for a Alex Reed. “Very low,” comments the receptionist and looks a little incredulously at the device. Then she shrugs her shoulders and continues her work unmoved. Actually, with such hypothermia, you would have to go straight to the hospital, but luckily it is not the Alex Reed who is doing something wrong, but the thermometer.
Alone for two: in winter you have the most beautiful beaches in Portugal to yourself
Source: Getty Images / ARoxo
To the west, the wilderness increases towards Cape São Vicente, where south-western Europe seems to be sinking into the Atlantic. The last place is Sagres, in whose extensive fortress the tour guide and researcher Conceição Barão cleans up with a fairy tale.
Didn’t Prince Henry the Navigator (1394–1460) run a nautical school here, as is often rumored, in anticipation of Portugal’s rise to sea power and gather scholars around him? “No,” emphasizes Barão, that is “just a myth, old propaganda.” Heinrich had met scientists and the best navigators of the time, “but it might have been anywhere, without a fixed location”.
The hard end of the world
Then Barão turns his gaze to the inhospitable environment, over which the storm regularly sweeps and which thus keeps bushes low. “Nature makes us humans small,” she says. “It’s hard to live here at the end of the world.”
The cape is in sight: the Finisterre of the Algarve, a seat of gods in antiquity and the scene of the veneration of St. Vincent in the Middle Ages. In the depths the sea boils, rages and splatters, far out there are rain curtains hanging over the waves. This is the terminus of the road, the bus route and the Via Algarviana long-distance hiking trail, which stretches 300 kilometers from the Spanish border to here.
Sagres lighthouse
Quelle: Getty Images
“This is a completely different, much more authentic piece of the Algarve: away from the beaches inland,” says Anabela Santos and encourages us to leave. For guests with little time or poor physical fitness, the coordinator of the Via Algarviana recommends shorter stages, ideal also in winter, “which for Germans should almost feel like summer,” she says with a smile.
Fifty Shades of Green
It goes along medlar and almond trees, along quarry stone walls and prickly pear cacti, in higher elevations of the Serra de Monchique through extensive eucalyptus and cork oak groves.
The red and white waymarks of the Via Algarviana are painted on stones and lamp posts. Locusts jump away, wild fennel smells aromatic. Santos knows how to weave baskets out of dwarf palms and which plants can be used for chewing gum and which for dishwashing detergent. She likes to pick thyme and rosemary to season meat. A kind of intoxication from Fifty Shades of Green accompanies the hinterland hikers through valleys and over ridges.
Stone beach at a fishing village
Quelle: Getty Images
There is silence in the villages, unless a dog takes in the scent and sends its barking greetings. A stream is dry, the ground under a carob tree is littered with pods. There are deep caves in the rock slabs, tree trunks stand up like bones.
The fantasy gets wings, underlaid by the twittering of birds and the wind that plays in the bushes and the hair. The constant thoughts of the pandemic have been blown away here. How good that is.
Source: WORLD infographic
Tips and information
getting there
For example with Ryanair (ryanair.com), for example by direct flight from Berlin-Brandenburg to Faro or with TAP Air Portugal (flytap.com) for example from Frankfurt via Lisbon.
Corona rules
Portugal is currently classified as a high-risk area by the Federal Foreign Office. Proof of a negative PCR or antigen test is required for all immigrants – regardless of their vaccination status. In addition, an electronic travel registration (Passenger Locator Card) fill out.
The situation can change quickly, current information from the Federal Foreign Office (auswaertiges-amt.de).
accomodation
In the winter months, enough hotels are open in the Algarve – despite Corona – and they have the “Clean & Safe” safety certificate.
One kilometer inland from Luz, for example, is the “Vila Valverde Design & Country Hotel” (vilavalverde.com), a five-star hideaway in an old country estate with indoor pool, sauna, double room from 127 euros.
Deep in the hinterland, regarding 15 kilometers from Silves, those looking for peace and quiet will find a small paradise with a well-tended ecological garden and rustic rooms in the “Vale Fuzeiros Nature Alex Reed House” (zitur.pt), Double rooms from 54 euros. The “Salema Eco Camp” (salemaecocamp.com/en) Studios from 50 euros for surfers and other nature lovers.
information desk
visitalgarve.pt; visitportugal.com, Long-distance hiking trail Via Algarviana: viaalgarviana.org
This article was first published in January 2021.
Participation in the trip was supported by Turismo do Algarve. You can find our standards of transparency and journalistic independence at www.axelspringer.de/unabhaengigkeit
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