Benagil Caves Tours, Faro, Portugal
And we continue along the
Algarve
As we continue west to see more
of the Algarve there is one thing I should mention: here they have beautiful
circles with super cool art pieces in the middle of them. Also we discovered
here besides intersections, mostly circles, there are ovales and even square
“circles” or however you call those, or how about the triangles… also what I
think is weird is that often the zebra crossing is right after the circle, so
one car can’t even go totally out as you have to stop (by the way here you
don’t have to look if you want to cross, most people only walk and hope for the
best): the best is when you need a circle to go into the circle… they really
have some weird traffic patterns here.
Bengali Cave by kayak
Our first stop of the day the
Bengali Beach and we hope that we can kayak to the cave. Ok first we have to
find a parking spot, we drove by the beach and discovered there is no parking
down there, so up on the other side – turning around and see there we found a
great parking spot – ok we had to walk down the hill. Once there we checked all
out and yes you can rent a kayak for 15 Euro per person for 1.5 hrs and the
cave is only 5 Min paddle away, but you can paddle more along the coast to
check out some other caves. Let’s do it: walking back up to the car and into
flipflops and swim suits, Paul buries the key under some rocks so the remote
can’t get wet and we walk back down again. After picking up our kayak out into
the Atlantic ocean and its waves – besides the natural waves there are also a
lot of waves from all the tourist boats – it is amazing on how many boats are
along that coastline. Around the corner and we paddle in the Cave: super
exiting – and then like a lot of other people we kind of flip over as the waves
break on the side we went into the cave and now we are even more wet – we
pulled the kayak out and it is really gorgeous the camera is not able to really
catch it. We also loved to watch other people getting flipped over – I think most
of them do (unless they come in with a guide who pulls them out). After a while
we set off on the other side where it is a bit more quiet and continue a bit
along the coastline: a beautiful beach – another cave here and another cave
there: we paddle in another one but no stopping and then continue around
another curve. We decide to turn around as it got fairly wavy and yes, we have
to paddle back against the wind and waves – which made us wet again as the
waves were up to 3 ft high once in a while. Wet and with a lot of cool memories
we came back to the beach this time with perfect landing as we now know how to
do it…. Lucky for us we could wash off
our feet and then up at the car changing of the clothes – as everything is
wet!!!
As it is already 2.30 – we
decided to skip all the other stops we wanted to do and continue right on to:
Our Apartment in Lagos
It is a super cute little
apartment, with 2 loungers in the sun in front of ours – that means let’s have
a coffee and relax a bit – but then we can’t be here for too long right, we are
on vacation and that means we have to explore something.
Along the cliffs on Praia de
Porto Mos
This beach is close to our
place, so we drive down there and then after checking out how long the sandy
beach is walk up onto the cliffs: which is super beautiful and we have some
amazing views along the ocean, down the steep cliffs, with cactus and then we
can’t believe it there is a bench: Perfect – Sitting down and enjoying the view
is perfect – Gine goes up around one more corner and then we sit in a wind
shadow only soaking up the view – until it’s time to go shopping for supper: as
we discovered with have some nice pots/frying pans we decided to have salad
with a fried Gordon blue – and it’s warm enough to eat outside. What more do we
want!!
Will it be sunny today?
When we got up, there was still
no sun on our table – did we got up to early? but then the sun is behind a palm
tree, so a bit later and we had our sunshine for coffee. With some clouds
coming in we lost it… let’s hope it will clear up.
Ponta da Piedade
We got told if you come to Lagos
you have to go to the lighthouse and Ponta da Piedade. Perfect with lots of
parking even a bus tour we started out with admiring the lighthouse and then
looking out onto the amazing cliffs – we went to the tip to have an even better
view – there are so many little side path we can take and everywhere you find
another viewpoint or another arch, tunnel, cliff – and amazing views up and
down the coast. It is really super amazing.
We also did walk the steps down
so that we could be a bit closer to the water and see more arches and sea
stacks – this is such a beautiful area and you find something cool to see and
discover around every corner.
Stairs to the Praia do Camilo
As per Paul this is the beach
with the 400 steps – I’m not sure if there are really 400, as per google it’s
steep stairs whatever that means: but yes there are quiet a few stairs down to
this little cozy beach. We set up for some relax time: it is super sheltered
and very warm – but the water is still cold. Through a tunnel we can go to
another little side beach and through an arch and along the water swept sand
into a little cave with a round opening Gine called it the Mini Bengali cave.
We had fun got hot with cold feet (I should mention Paul went totally into the
freezing water) – I thought putting in the feet is plenty enough. And then we
had a long way up!!!!
Coffee in our loungers
As we are so close to home – by
car 4 Min, we decided to do our supper shopping and then head home for coffee:
I mean we have two lounge chairs in the sun, perfect set up!! We didn’t last
long, as the Beach called to Paul
Sun at Praia de Porto Mos
We decided to go to the closer
beach which also doesn’t has that many stairs: and the sand here is the most gorgeous,
also with the slight wind it is super pleasant to be here. Paul hits the sand
and Gine started to walk along the cliffs on the beach: yes, it is a fairly
long beach as it took 45 Min to walk to the end of the beach and back – but you
have the amazing cliffs in the back and you walk until some big rocks stop you
– and then you walk back over the super soft and nice sand and with a bit a
cool wind, sunshine, and if you are hot you walk in the water.
What a perfect day.
2025-05-22