Milreu Roman Ruins

The remains of a grand Roman villa on the edge of Estoi, lived in from the first to the fourth century and wealthy enough to have its own bath house and temple. Fish mosaics still line the bathing rooms, and the temple later served as a church, which is why so much of it stands. Ten minutes uphill, Estoi village keeps a pink Rococo palace and its gardens.

• Close toEstoiEstoi sits in the Barrocal hills ten kilometres inland from Faro, among orange groves and dry-stone walls, and carries more heritage than most Algarve towns several times its size. The Palácio de Estoi is the headline: a palace of pink façades, formal gardens, statuary and blue-and-white azulejo panels, completed early in the twentieth century and reopened as a pousada, so you can sleep in it or simply walk the gardens with a coffee. Ten minutes away on foot lie the Roman ruins of Milreu, one of the most important Roman sites in southern Portugal: a villa with fish mosaics still in place, bath buildings and the shell of a temple later reused as a church. The village between the two is properly Algarvian: a small square by the parish church, cafés where the talk is in Portuguese, and lanes that give way quickly to almond and citrus country. Faro's shops, station and airport are fifteen minutes downhill, and the beaches of the Ria Formosa not much further. Estoi suits travellers who want the inland Algarve with substance: two genuinely important monuments, a living village around them, and the coast within easy reach.

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Faro Old Town

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Natural park

Ria Formosa Natural Park

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Market hall

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