Lagos: golden cliffs, old walls, and the launch point for Ponta da Piedade

Most people meet Lagos at its marina, where boat touts work the boardwalk and the day-trip crowds funnel toward the headland. Stay an hour longer than that and the town rearranges itself. The 16th-century walls still ring the old quarter; inside them, the streets narrow into shaded lanes where the morning bread run and the clatter of café cups set the pace, not tourism.

Lagos earned its money from the sea long before holidaymakers arrived — first as a fishing port, later, grimly, as a slaving entrepôt whose old market building still stands on Praça do Infante. It's worth standing in front of it for a minute. The town's prosperity and its shame came through the same harbour mouth, and the better local guides will tell you so plainly.

The cliffs at Ponta da Piedade are the postcard, and for once the postcard undersells it: stacks and arches of honey-coloured sandstone, sea caves that glow jade when the light slants in. The 182-step staircase down to the water is free and open all day. The catch is everyone knows it.

Go at 8am or go by water — ideally both. A two-hour kayak from Praia da Batata lets you paddle into the grottoes the big boats can't enter, and you'll have the Camilo arches almost to yourself. By eleven the grottoes are a traffic jam of tour RIBs and the magic leaks out.

Praia da Batata is the town beach — five minutes on foot, fine for a first swim, busy by noon. Praia Dona Ana is the famous one, all sculpted cliffs and clear water; it's been widened with imported sand and lost a little of its drama, but it's still lovely early. The one to walk for is Praia do Camilo: 200 steps down to a pair of small coves split by a rock tunnel. Arrive before 9am and it's yours.

If you want space, point yourself west to Meia Praia — four kilometres of open sand that never feels crowded, with a couple of honest beach restaurants where grilled fish comes with a sea view and no ceremony.

Skip the marina's photo-menu places. The cooking worth your evening is a few streets in: a tasca doing fish soup and grilled dourada, a tiled room where the cataplana arrives still bubbling and the house white is poured from an unlabelled bottle. Order what was landed that morning — the board changes daily for a reason.

For a lunch that costs less than a coffee back home, find the workers' restaurant near the market doing a prato do dia: soup, a plate of pork or fish, bread, wine, an espresso, all in under twenty minutes.