Faro

About Faro

Faro is the city half the Algarve skips: you land at its airport and speed off toward Lagos or Albufeira without getting past the roundabout. Those who stay find something else: a small provincial capital of civil servants and students from the Universidade do Algarve, with an enormous lagoon right against its centre.

Almost everything worth seeing fits inside the old walls. You enter through the Arco da Vila, climb cobbled lanes up to the Sé square — the cathedral, with its climbable tower and orange-tree courtyard — and exit through the Arco do Repouso. This is the Cidade Velha: fifteen minutes end to end, storks nesting on the bell towers, and inside, the Museu Municipal in the former Convento de Nossa Senhora da Assunção, home to the Roman mosaic of Ossonoba. Outside the walls, the Igreja do Carmo hides the unsettling Capela dos Ossos behind it, lined with more than a thousand skulls and bones of Carmelite monks. It's no tourist gimmick — it's a 19th-century memento mori, and it's genuinely striking.

The other Faro begins on the water. The Ria Formosa is a maze of channels, marshes and sandbanks separating the city from the open sea. Boats leave from the Doca for Ilha Deserta, Farol and Culatra (€20-35 per person); Praia de Faro is reachable by city bus, tickets €1.60-2.30. Eating out is cheap: set lunch menu for €10-15, coffee for under a euro, a 3-4 star hotel between €70 and €130 a night in mid-season.

Timing matters more than you'd think. In July and August the Algarve fills up, the heat bites and prices climb; May, June and September bring 22-27°C depending on the month, almost no rain, and manageable beaches. If the atmosphere interests you, look out for Festival F (music, in the old town, in September), FOLKFARO, the Feira de Santa Iria in October, and July's Concentração Internacional de Motos, which fills the city with bikers — not everyone's idea of a good time.