Road Trippin' Through Portugal's Algarve

Pleased you joined us today for the first part of our Algarve Diaries documenting one of the most incredible trips we ever made mostly due to the breath taking, easily accessible and mostly untouched nature in the south western tip of the European continent.

For today we're going to a little known beach called Falesia...

Before we get there we need to fly to Portugal...

Easily done this time of the year mainly due to Ryanair's route which is served usually below EUR50 per person per trip.

We then need to get a car ideally at the Faro Airport which is nice, clean, large, relaxed and well organised. Also the rentals have a huge parking lot with nice personnel and you can either book in advance or on site for...brace yourselfs...less than EUR 5 per day :).

So we got this horrendous but reliable and cheap VW Up! **Gas is available anywhere in Portugal and stations operate the same way they do in Central Europe so fill up and then pay. There are a few prepaid unmanned stations but not many. Gas is cheaper than in Central but not much. If you do get a gas guzzler and need to fill up anything over 60L I recommend to hop over to Spain into Andalucia where gas cost is up to 20% below the one in Portugal.

If you do go try to avoid this car especially with an automatic and instead go for the Opel Corsa with a manual. Easier and nicer to drive, needs less fuel and doesn't drive you crazy with the automatic transmission.

Next up check into a hotel close to the airport in our case the 'IBIS' - if you're familiar with these hotels forget everything you think you know about them. The Ibis in Faro is an excellent hotel, super friendly and family run, good quality food and drinks and affordable plus a huge terrace with pool and palm trees and super nice bathrooms in the rooms for...brace yourselfs again...EUR 42. As summer gets closer prices go up and right now they stand at EUR 55 but still this is a monster bargain.

Falesia Magic

After a good night's sleep it's time to go to our destination. The rental cars come with an automatic toll system which is billed directly to your credit card without any stops or interruptions. One time use of the highway is between EUR 1.50 and 2.00 every 40km or so. While this isn't cheap and you can alternatively take a sort of highway with speed limited to 90, many round abouts and much nicer scenery I still recommend the highway as it is super empty, you can easily average 130kmh or more and distances are just not that far. From Faro to the very edge of Europe in Sagres it takes less than 90 minutes of highway driving so a good mix of highway and country roads is nice, fast, scenic and not expensive at all.

This is what greets you before you see the ominous sign:

Yeah...tend to agree.

Although this time of the year it will be rather empty aside from some local portugese tourists/visitors and waves and surfing schools will not be present but hey - it was February.

Once you get closer and parked your car you're greeted by this sight...

Again nothing special but wait until you make your way down those stairs...

Smell the sea salt yet?

Here's the catch. Yours truly is actually standing not in front of a rock formation but instead sand. This is all sand not rocks - amazing. Hence the prohibition of grinding too much into this giant sand castle as it might actually partially collapse on you ;).

The sea was as cold as you'd expect the Atlantic to be around this time of the year but then again it doesn't really change much does it?

The impressive thing here was how natural everything was it looked like straight out of a postcard.

Thing about this location is it actually felt like being on a different planet or in some scifi movie. There's something surreal about the colors and looks of it all plus the lack of any sign of humanity made it one special place.

This is the only picture I took which comes close to transmitting this feeling: