The Drive to Monchique

Most people who come to the Algarve stay on the coast. Which is understandable, the coast is why they came. But there's a drive I've done a dozen times that I'd recommend to almost anyone, and it goes in completely the opposite direction.

Monchique sits in the Serra de Monchique, about forty minutes north of Portimão. The road up from the coast climbs through eucalyptus and cork oak, the temperature drops a few degrees, and somewhere along the way the light changes. By the time you reach the town you feel genuinely far from the beach resorts, even though you're not.

The town itself is small and unhurried. There are cafés where people sit for a long time, a market that operates on its own logic, and a general sense that nobody is particularly in a rush. From Fóia, the highest point in the Algarve, a short drive further up, on a clear day you can see both coastlines. The Atlantic to the west, the Ria Formosa stretching east. The whole region laid out at once.

I went up there recently with someone who'd been in the Algarve for two weeks and spent most of it at the beach. She'd been enjoying herself, but she said at some point on the drive back down that she felt like she'd finally seen where she actually was. Like the geography had clicked into place.

That's something a beach doesn't give you. Perspective usually requires some altitude.

We stopped in Caldas de Monchique on the way back, a small spa village in a valley below the town, slightly faded, with a stream running through it and the kind of quietness you don't find on the coast in summer. Had coffee. Sat for a while. Drove back to the sea feeling like we'd been somewhere properly different.

Which we had.