Sagres and the west: where Europe runs out and the wind takes over

Drive west from Lagos and the Algarve you were sold — sunbeds, golf, frozen sangria — thins out and then vanishes. By the time the road reaches Sagres, the land has gone low and hard, scoured by an Atlantic wind that rarely takes a day off. This is the Costa Vicentina, a protected stretch of coast that the package crowds never quite reach, and it's the best of the region for anyone who'd rather walk than lie down.

Sagres itself is a working village wrapped around a fortress on a wind-blasted spit. From here Henry the Navigator's school of seafarers is said to have studied the ocean they were about to sail off the edge of. The fort is worth an hour; the cliffs around it are worth a day.

Six kilometres past Sagres, the land stops at Cabo de São Vicente — the southwesternmost point of mainland Europe, a 75-metre cliff with a lighthouse and not much else but weather. For centuries this was the literal edge of the known world. At sunset, with the beam swinging out over the Atlantic and a sausage van selling the 'last bratwurst before America', it still feels like it.

Come for the last hour of light, bring more layers than you think you need, and stand well back from the unfenced edges. The wind here has a habit of arriving in sudden gusts.

The west coast is the Algarve's surf country. Around Sagres, Praia do Tonel and Praia da Mareta sit on opposite sides of the spit, so there's almost always one side working whatever the wind. Beliche, tucked under high cliffs, is gentler and good for a first lesson. North toward Carrapateira, Praia do Amado is the region's surf-school hub — busy, friendly, and forgiving.

If the surf's too big to swim, the consolation is the walking. The Rota Vicentina's Fishermen's Trail runs along these cliffs in day-sized chunks; the Carrapateira loop, looking down on Bordeira's vast empty beach, is one of the finest half-days on foot in the whole country.