Strand Entdeckung in the Algarve - Armação de Pêra

Ola,

At the beginning of this post I have to make a confession to you: I'm not a huge fan of sandy beaches. Most of the time there is no shade to be found there. When you come out of the water you are not only salty, but in windy weather you have sand sticking everywhere and probably the biggest negative point is: IT'S SAND EVERYWHERE! Be it in the bikini, in the towel, in the backpack, on the sunscreen, in the hat or in the eyes. It's everywhere and it's not going away anytime soon. All of these “problems” do not exist on a pebble beach or on rocky cliffs. In addition, visibility is usually poor through the sand and without rocks there aren't many fish.

It's good that I chose the region with probably the most beautiful sandy beaches. This was a truly brilliant move. Well, it's pretty anyway. And because it's pretty to look at, I picked another 3 hour hike along the Algarve coast, which takes in some of the most beautiful beaches here. Many of these beaches have names but I'm honestly too lazy to pick them all out so I've only labeled the pictures that don't show a beach. So that you know where I roughly hiked: From the town of Armação de Pêra, continue west along the coast.

The rock formations that the sea and the tides have formed here over the years are really beautiful to look at. However, these are very crumbly, especially at the outermost edge, and therefore much of the immediate coastline is at risk of collapse.

In Portugal it is illegal to privatize a beach. I think that's great and it also means that people can spread out on all the beaches. Nevertheless, there are a few 5 star hotels and spas and golf clubs located directly on the coast, which, in conjunction with the crumbly cliffs, sometimes force pedestrians to take a detour around these areas.

At the church, wishes and prayers are written on shells and attached there. I especially liked the one with the face!

There is a chapel on one of the headlands. An actual wedding took place here on this day. I did the preparation on the way there and I saw the guests on the way back.

This beach can only be reached by boat/kayak/SUP. This leads to this very surreal seagull beach. The seagulls settled here to rest and, in my imagination, felt the same way as the people who lay on the other beaches.

Similar to the famous Benagil Cave, there are caves all along the coastline where the ceiling has already partially collapsed and so the light shines in from above. Here I saw one of these caves from above.

After I finished my hike, I took a break at the car, ate something and put on my swimsuit. Based on my research, I planned to go to Benagil Beach and from there swim into the Benagil Cave and visit it (although I had booked a boat tour to this same cave the following day). So I parked right on the beach for €5 (an exception for me) and walked as far as I could to the cave. The sea was calm and the waves were perfectly fine. In order to reduce the risk of an accident as much as possible, I swam towards the cave equipped with a diving mask and swimming buoy. In my research I have already noticed that this cave is particularly popular for kayak and SUP tours. But the only thing I saw that day were boats, large and small, going into the cave. I thought I was just lucky and swam further towards the cave to see how much space there actually is in the cave and whether I can venture in between these boats or whether there is a special swimmer's path.

I didn't even come to this conclusion because the lifeguard whistled me back after about 25 meters. After he also scared away a SUP from the cave, I already thought that visiting the cave via the swimming route was not allowed. So I snorkeled a bit and took a closer look at the few fish that were here. The lifeguard then paddled out to me again and said that a tour of the cave was not allowed. In general he took his job very seriously and even whistled me back after 25 meters further away from the cave. I definitely found that a bit unnecessary, especially since I was traveling with my buoy, but in the end it's kind of his job. I still prefer to choose the beach areas without lifeguards to avoid something like that in the future.

Well, only half-satisfied, I got out of the water and drove to my next campsite. This one is a bit hippie and fancy but I really like it and think it's really nice here.

Your Britta