Algarve hotels collection

At Cape St Vincent, the cliffs drop sheer into the Atlantic and the Portuguese coast turns at a right angle: the Algarve begins at that elbow. On its limewashed roofs, every chimney is pierced to its own pattern, a white lattice through which the smoke drifts out in threads. Silves keeps a castle of red sandstone above the orange groves, Tavira its four-sided roofs, the Ria Formosa its lagoons behind a chain of barrier islands. Around São Brás de Alportel, cork is stripped with an axe, and the last digit of the year is painted in white on the trunk.