| Dubbed the “St Tropez” of the Algarve, Albufeira is one of the main tourist towns not just of the Algarve but also of the whole of Portugal. Famed for its racy nightlife, Albufeira is well endowed with discos, bars and restaurants. This is the place to go if you want to literally dance the night away, especially during the height of the summer season. |
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| English and German are widely spoken here and you can find English pubs, English breakfasts and satellite TV, so you don’t even have to miss the football. The beach at Albufeira is permanently crammed with reddening flesh from about June to September. |
| Albufeira can date its foundations to at least the Roman period when it was called ‘Baltum’ though its true origins are probably earlier. Under Moorish rule from about 715, it was known as Al-Buhera (the lagoon) and was an important port with extensive trading links with the Mediterranean and North Africa. Its importance as a commercial centre caused the Moors to endow it with a formidable order of battlement walls and it was one of the last Lusitanian towns to fall to the Portuguese in 1250. |
| Once part of Christendom, Albufeira’s role as a centre of import and export dwindled steadily and soon it became little more than a small but delightful Algarvian fishing village, which it remained until the 1960s. |
| Unfortunately, the opening of the airport at Faro encouraged the town to develop in a sprawling building program of towering apartment blocks and hotels. In spite of this, the centre of Albufeira has managed to retain some of its original rustic flavour in the steep, narrow cobbled streets and the small harbour. |