Home » Europe » Portugal » Portugal’s Eastern Algarve, Tavira City and Islands

Portugal’s Eastern Algarve, Tavira City and Islands

by James Chapman on 16/08/10 at 8:03 pm

Many of you may well already know the Algarve region of Portugal with its many beautiful beaches and luxury vacation resorts, because most people will fly into the airport located close to Faro, the Algarve’s capital city and travel west to those resorts. They may not realize that there is another wonderful part of the Algarve that they are unfortunately missing. That is the eastern Algarve, which has its own incredible story to tell with such places as Tavira city and its Islands.

Unlike the busy tourist environment of the western Algarve resorts this particular region of the Algarve in the east is mostly frequented by the more relaxed tourist that is looking for some idyllic tranquillity.

The eastern Algarve is made up of many quiet relaxing beautiful small villages where the friendly inhabitants will most often welcome you with a glass of excellent Portuguese wine and some homemade bread.

Tavira city is located centrally in this eastern region, it was at one time in Portugal’s history the capital city in the Algarve, but then as Faro city grew larger and more commercial the political emphasis moved there.

Tavira is a very large picturesque city that has an immense amount of historic charm. It boasts a total of fifty two churches, although in these days there are only seventeen of the churches fully functional.

That is a lot of churches in one city, but the wonderful historic charm of Tavira doesn’t stop there. There is an area of the city that is known as the old quarters and in this part of the city it is heaped in history.

Image via Wikipedia

Read more in Portugal

« A Taste of Portugal: A Recipe for Raivas

Douro Valley, Portugal – Vintage House Luxury in Pinhao »

Image via Wikipedia

Narrow winding ever rising old stone steps will take you to the very top of this area where you will discover even more history, an amazing and virtually complete castle.

Inside and around the outside of this splendid castle you will discover many gardens, two big churches, a shaded coffee bar, a luxurious hotel and a beautiful restaurant.

Tavira city is full of open garden areas and one such area is idyllically situated partway along the beautiful river that flows through the centre of Tavira.

This is really a picturesque setting; on the one hand you have gardens full of flowers, greenery and fish ponds with miniature water fountains and on the other you are presented with fishermen’s boats, seagulls and historic iron river bridges.

But the diversity of Tavira still holds some surprises for you in the form of lagoons and a series of islands with absolutely fascinating beaches that can only be reached by small boats that are made available solely for that purpose.

These small boats travel back and forth between Tavira and the Islands carrying only two or three dozen people at a time, with the only payment being a coin in the hand of the boat captain.

Because of this you will find that the beaches are not in anyway full and have the appearance of private beaches. On the Islands are restaurants, bars and several small houses where people can take vacation on the Islands if they so wish.

Oh, yes those tourists that are spending their money to just sit around a hotel resort swimming pool do not know what they are missing in this area which is rightly called the Garden of Portugal.