The Algarve in September

The Algarve keeps its best month to itself. In September the water is warmer than it has been all year, the light comes in low off the Atlantic, and the coast road empties as if somebody had asked politely.

The Algarve in September has the warmest sea of the whole year, not the second warmest and not a respectable compromise. The Atlantic lags the sun by roughly two months, so the water off Tavira and Fuseta reaches around twenty two degrees in September, two to three degrees above its June temperature, and holds near twenty degrees through October. Portuguese schools return in the middle of the month and the coast resets around them. Same beaches, same heat, a third of the people.

Is the sea warm in the Algarve in September?

Yes, and it is at its annual peak. The rule that matters is the one no brochure explains: the Algarve is two coasts with two different seas. East of Faro, the Sotavento, the leeward side, faces south into a shallow shelf and a lagoon system that warms all summer and lets go slowly. West of Lagos, and then north around the corner at Sagres, the Barlavento and the Costa Vicentina take the full Atlantic, and summer upwelling drags cold water to the surface no matter what the air is doing. On the same September afternoon, Cacela Velha can be twenty two degrees and Carrapateira seventeen.

So the answer depends on what the swim is for. For long water, go east. For the walk, the wind and the size of the thing, go west and accept a shorter swim.

The best Algarve beaches in September

The best Algarve beaches in September are the ones that were unbearable in August and are now merely beautiful. Five hold the case.

The sandbanks of the Ria Formosa. The lagoon runs sixty kilometres from Faro to Cacela Velha behind a chain of barrier islands, and the sandbanks inside it appear and disappear with the tide. Boats go out from Fuseta, Olhão and Santa Luzia. There is no shade, no bar and no reason to hurry. This is the Algarve at its most private, and it exists nowhere else on the Iberian coast.

Ilha Deserta. Also called Ilha da Barreta, reached by ferry from Faro in about forty minutes. A single wooden restaurant, Estaminé, sits at the head of a boardwalk. Everything else is dune, sand and the southernmost point of mainland Portugal. In September the last boat back leaves with a dozen people on it.

Tavira and Cacela Velha. Ilha de Tavira is a ferry hop from the town, and Praia do Barril at its western end still has the rusted anchors of the tuna fleet standing in the dunes. Cacela Velha, further east, is one whitewashed street, one fort, one church and a view down onto a spit of sand you wade across at low tide. It has changed very little in thirty years.

Praia da Marinha and the Benagil coast. The cliffs between Carvoeiro and Armação de Pêra are the Algarve of the postcard, and Praia da Marinha is the best of them: two rock arches, green water, a steep stair down. The sea caves at Benagil are worth the boat and only the boat. Go from Benagil or Portimão at eight in the morning, before the swell picks up and before the flotilla arrives. September mornings are usually glass.

Praia da Bordeira. Around the corner on the Costa Vicentina, a river mouth, a shifting lagoon and a kilometre of sand backed by nothing. The water is cold and honest. Come for the walk, the light at six o'clock and the Rota Vicentina path above it, and swim if the day allows. The whole western coast sits inside a natural park, which is why it has stayed as it is.

Where to stay in the quiet Algarve

Five properties carry the region, and September is when they are at their most civil. Vila Vita Parc at Porches is the largest of them, a terraced estate above its own beach with gardens that take twenty minutes to cross. Vila Joya, on the sand at Praia da Galé, is the small one, a house first and a hotel second, with a dining room that has held two Michelin stars for years. Bela Vista in Praia da Rocha is a restored palace on the cliff, all tiles and dark wood, the most Portuguese of the five. Conrad Algarve at Quinta do Lago is the modern proposition, low and pale, ten minutes from the Ria Formosa. Pine Cliffs sits directly above Praia da Falésia, where the cliff runs red for six kilometres and the walk at low tide is the best in the region.

For the coast north of here, the pine and the lagoons above Comporta, A Paradise Called Portugal continues the map.

The table

September is the month the Algarve eats best, because the restaurants are open, staffed and no longer under siege. Clams in the shell with coriander and garlic. Whole sea bass, salt and nothing else. Tuna from the Sotavento, thick cut, barely cooked. Noélia in Cabanas de Tavira built its reputation on exactly this discipline, and half the Algarve queues for a table there in August and walks in during the last week of September. The seafood rice arrives in the pot it was cooked in. Our wider list is in the best fish restaurants in Portugal.

A swimsuit named after a place

Sofia Godinho, the Portuguese swimwear and jewellery label, names each piece after a place rather than a season. Read together, the Algarve pieces are a route along the Sotavento.

For a week here we would take two bikinis and one swimsuit. Sotavento for the lagoon days, when you are in and out of the water eight times before lunch, and Roche for the boat to Benagil and whatever the afternoon turns into. The rest of the case is in the High Summer swimwear edit and in the Salt and Sun edition, which was built for exactly this light. Our Salt and Sun story explains the thinking, and A Paradise Called Portugal collects the Portuguese names in one place.

Golden jewellery does the evening work. September dusk comes earlier and warmer, and metal reads better in it. Hoops through the day, weight after eight. The practical questions, salt water included, are answered in golden jewellery the Riviera way, and the pieces themselves sit in the golden jewellery collection.

The Algarve in October, and after

October is the underrated month. The sea holds near twenty degrees on the Sotavento, the air sits in the mid twenties, the almond and fig light gets softer still, and the hotels run at a pace that feels almost private. Rain, when it comes, arrives as a single afternoon rather than a change of season. By November the calculation shifts and the search moves south, which is where Winter Sun Destinations: Where to Go When Europe Turns Cold takes over.

High Summer, in Four Parts

THE SEASON: High Summer: The Season That Doesn't End in August
PORTUGAL: The Algarve in September
SPAIN: Spain's Long Summer
ITALY: Italy, After August