Kiwi Roaming

To be fair we didn’t spend much time in either Lagos or Portimão, we went to them both for functional reasons – pick up the rental car, go to the supermarket, bakery and bus depots – and only went for a wander in each town once. We spent the rest of our time on day trips, at the beach or our resort, or just out walking.

Lagos – has a walled old town surrounded by modern apartment buildings. Lagos is very clean and tourist friendly, relatively small but equally quite spread out. Once a slave trading hub it’s now a tourist town with a marina and port and beaches. Like Lisbon and other cities we have visited much of the historic town was destroyed in 1755 by a massive earthquake but there are some ruins and older buildings still standing. We enjoyed a lovely lunch in a square the day we wandered around, Steve got the menu of the day which was good value and yum. I enjoyed a glass of rose and open chicken sandwich. We then took a look in the tat shops, wandered the narrow streets, enjoyed the beautiful tile pathways and lovely street art.

There are no super yachts here just smaller boats in the marina but there is a massive dry dock and they have one of those pedestrian bridges that opens when a boat is coming into the marina. One evening we walked around the side of the marina where there are loads of bars and restaurants with happy hour signs for €2 drinks and tapas (we were too late in the day to enjoy these) with tv screens showing futebol – so we felt compelled to sit and enjoy a wine outside in the warm evening.

Since we were there a week we predominantly self catered our evening meals, we found a supermarket we loved – a Pingo Doce hyper, which means they sell absolutely everything, clothes, books, stationary etc. This one also has a massive cafeteria which was always humming with people buying cooked meals, sitting both inside and out. Around the edges of the carpark are campervans parked up and the carpark has covered parking rows which was useful on the one evening we went there while it rained. I know it’s just a supermarket but it was excellent.

Portimão – is a much larger city than Lagos, it has a navy presence, large port and marinas including super yachts. Lots of British tourists here but it didn’t feel as much of a tourist town like Lagos did, more of a functional hub. We spent a bit of time here as mentioned above but only a couple of hours in the older town. It wasn’t as clean and white as Lagos and the town is hillier. The MotoGP circuit is in Portimão and the two towns are connected by a motorway.

Interesting thing about the motorways in Portugal – they used to be tolled but the government’s modelling led to them deciding the economic benefits of improving transport links, reducing congestion and delays, and improving accessibility to transport routes, far out weighed the €1B toll revenue, so they removed all of the tolls in Jan 2025!

We loved where we stayed just out of Lagos with the view, listening to the sea and sitting on our balcony, but if we returned we would probably choose to stay in Albufeira which has swimming beaches, a bit more of a vibe and as I mentioned reminded us of the Greek Islands.