On the Move

I walk a lot in the Algarve. Not in a structured, fitness-tracking way, just the general movement through places that I find helps me think and helps whoever I'm with talk.

There's something about walking alongside someone rather than sitting opposite them that changes the quality of conversation. The eye contact becomes optional. There's something to look at other than each other. Silence stops being awkward because you're both watching the same thing, a boat on the river, an egret in the salt pans, the way the light is sitting on the water at a particular moment.

The Seven Hanging Valleys trail between Carvoeiro and Praia da Marinha is the best coastal walk I know in the Algarve. It runs along the cliff tops with views down into coves that look impossible, the colour of the water genuinely doesn't look real from up there. It takes a couple of hours at a comfortable pace and ends somewhere you can sit and eat.

But some of the best walks I've done here have been less dramatic than that. Through the old town in Tavira early on a weekday morning before the cafés fill up. Along the boardwalk in Santa Luzia at dusk. Up through the back streets of Lagos, away from the harbour and into the residential parts where people hang washing and keep vegetable gardens and life looks uncomplicated.

The best conversations I've had here have all started with somewhere to walk.