Why September in the Algarve is for Parents

The kids are back in school and crowds of vacationing families have left beaches. It’s the perfect season for a parents’ getaway to Portugal’s sunny Algarve. The weather is summery, with warm days and sunshine nearly every day (this southern coast averages 300 sunny days annually). Most locals you’ll meet speak English, so travel there is easy.

Choose a lively tourist town in central Algarve, such as Albufeira, or find a seaside village west of Lagos for a more laid-back local experience. Lagos is a good center for boat excursions to see the soaring sea-carved cliffs and caves of Ponta da Piedade. Clifftop paths and walkways allow safe viewing from above.

Don’t miss Lagos historical museum, which incorporates one of Portugal’s most breathtaking churches, it’s interior almost completely covered in gold. Inland from Lagos is Silves, where a Moorish castle dominates a valley covered in orange groves. Walk the walls for views and descend into the vast cistern that provided water when the castle was besieged.

Cliffs and rocky headlands are interspersed with white-sand beaches, and, at the far western point, Sagres is where Prince Henry the Navigator built his navigation school. This was the center of Portugal’s great Age of Discoveries; his caravels sailed from Lagos to discover the Azores, Madeira and a route to India around the Cape of Good Hope.

From the site of his navigation school, the cliffs drop straight into the crashing Atlantic surf, and beaches along this western shore are favorites for surfers. Follow the hiking trail along this coast or take small roads to find beaches where you can watch surfers and waves breaking into pillars of foam against the cliffs.

Stop at local restaurants to enjoy fresh seafood or the local specialty, piri piri, a tongue-tingling chicken dish that is a reminder of the Algarve’s historic North African influence. You’ll see this influence in its architecture, too, with Moorish decorative themes and a few original buildings from the centuries when Portugal was under Moorish rule.

Whether you like history, hiking, dining or languishing on a beach, you’ll find it on a September trip here. This is when the Portuguese enjoy their Algarve.