Lagos · Things to do

The cliff headland south of town, with sandstone stacks and sea caves you can only really see from the water. Walking the clifftop and the stairway down to the small landing costs nothing; grotto boat trips leave from the marina and from Praia da Batata and are weather-dependent.

Two cove beaches on the cliff road out to Ponta da Piedade, both reached by long wooden staircases down from the clifftop car parks. Small, so they fill by mid-morning in July and August; there is no shade at high tide.

The municipal museum network includes the building on Praça do Infante used as a slave market, now the Slavery Route nucleus documenting the fifteenth-century trade that ran through Lagos. Small, direct, and the reason to visit rather than skip the town's museums.

The compact seventeenth-century fort guarding the river mouth, joined to the promenade by a short bridge and now part of the municipal museum network. Worth it mainly for the ramparts and the view back over the bay.

Not in Lagos itself but at Medronhal, Quinta Figueiras, inland towards Barão de São João; it keeps more than 170 species and is the standard rainy-day or with-children option in the western Algarve. You need a car or a taxi to get there.