Train Trip to Carvoeiro in the Algarve

In April 2024, we traveled by train from Lisboa to the town of Carvoeiro in the Algarve, the southern coast of Portugal. We wanted to see the famous cliffs and we wanted to go before it was high summer, when the Algarve is crowded and hot.

We took the inter-city train to Tunes. It was a scenic ride, crossing the Alentejo plains and then passing through some mountains. The train was almost 30 minutes late and we thought we would miss our connection. But no! They held the local train until our train arrived. There were lots of people transferring to the local, which ran parallel to the coast, a few kilometers inland. After arriving at the Estombar-Lagoa station, we got a rideshare to our hotel.

We stayed at Pestana Palm Gardens, which is very near the clifftop walking trail. It is close to the beach at Vale de Centeanes. We had a lovely two-floor ground-level apartment with two bedrooms, kitchen, dining-living room, and a patio. We enjoyed the associated pool-side restaurant, Sal & Tal, for breakfast and a couple dinners. There was a clifftop sunset view a 5-minute walk from the hotel. We’ll have to go back there with friends!

Read on for our trip diary with a lot of photos below, plus check out another post with a video of our hike on the Seven Hanging Valleys trail, with original music!

Around the hotel

Day 1

On our first full day, we walked from the hotel along the Percurso dos Sete Vales Suspensos (the Seven Hanging Valleys trail). The cliffs are amazing; there were many spring flowers; Alpine Swifts and other birds soared over and around us. There were many sinkholes, safely marked off by log fences. The meaning of the name, suspended valleys, refers to the sea undercutting the cliffs. There were caves below a lot of the land we walked on.

Why are there so many caves here? The erosion process starts on land. Water runoff on land erodes the limestone from above, creating the sinkholes. Some of the sinkholes have sunk all the way down to the water, making the caves. The waves erode the bottom of the cliff, opening the cave to the sea. You could hear the waves in some of the sinkholes. It’s important to not go too close, to the sinkholes or the cliff edges. Erosion is always happening.

Seven Hanging Valleys Trail

Day 2

On the second day, we got a rideshare to Quinta da Rocha, a peninsula between two rivers on the west side of Portimão. This estuary area, protected from the open sea by sandbars, has good birding and was popular with kite surfers too. We wondered if we could rely on rideshares in remote places, but our driver was not phased by the rough dirt road and figuring out which dirt road actually led to the end of the peninsula. Turns out the nature reserve there was a popular place, with a small but busy parking lot at the end of the road. It felt a little like Plum Island in Massachusetts, one of our old favorites.

We walked inland on a dirt road beside the marshes, heading toward an area where flamingos supposedly gathered. Instead, we came across some birders who were observing a woodchat shrike, a medium-sized black and white bird with a chestnut cap. We got great views and pictures of this life bird. The leader also told us to pay attention to the gulls because this was a place where Audouin’s gulls gathered, another life bird for us. He told us the flamingos alternated between this estuary and another so might not be there that day. It was a dusty walk in very warm sun, so we concentrated on the birds we could already see.

We had told our driver we would call him when we wanted a ride back, but we couldn’t get a phone connection. The rideshare app worked fine though, so we got another driver to take us back to the hotel.

Quinta da Rocha and the Birds

Here’s a link to Pam’s eBird checklist for Quinta da Rocha. (eBird is a project of Cornell University. Birders around the world contribute their sightings in an effort to track bird species, their movements, and populations worldwide.)

Day 3

On the third day, we had some early morning birding around the hotel. The highlight was several Iberian Magpies in a field nearby. Later we walked from the hotel along the Carvoeiro boardwalk, an easy trail that ended in the town. This clifftop boardwalk had more dramatic cliffs with caves and eroded former trails. We had lunch in Carvoeiro and spent some time hanging out in town. For dinner, we got a rideshare to Benagil for an excellent fish dinner. After dinner, the spotlights above the beach were lighting the wild waves crashing into the cove. It was a dramatic night calling out for a photo.

Carvoeiro Town

For next time

On our clifftop hike, we saw the hole that provides a skylight for the famous sea cave in Benagil. We knew we should also try to book a boat trip that goes into the caves, but we were just too relaxed to schedule it. We’ll be back!