Praia da Figueira

• In the town ofSalemaSalema is what the western Algarve looked like before the volume went up: a small fishing village folded into a valley mouth, ending in a beach where the boats are still drawn up on the sand. It belongs to the parish of Budens in Vila do Bispo, on the quiet stretch of coast between Lagos and Sagres where planning protections have kept the building low and the coastline honest. The beach is the daily event: broad, gently shelving and Blue Flag awarded, with a short seafront where the restaurants grill fish landed a few metres away. At its eastern end, the tilted rock slabs hold something unexpected: dinosaur footprints, pressed into what was soft lagoon mud around 125 million years ago, and visible to anyone who knows to look. Beyond the village, the coastal path towards Burgau and Sagres gives cliff-top walking with barely another soul in sight for most of the year. There is no strip and no nightlife to speak of, and that is the point. Salema suits travellers who measure a place in swims, long lunches and early nights, and it rewards anyone who stays past the day-trip hours, when the village gets its beach back.

Praia da Figueira is one of the western Algarve's most secluded beaches, reached only on foot down a valley from the village of Figueira. The walk in takes around half an hour along a valley track from the village, near Budens, and there is nothing at the end of it but sand, cliffs and sea. That absence is the point: no development, no road, and usually only a handful of people even in summer. The south-facing cove picks up some swell but is often calm, and whatever you need must be carried in and out again. It suits walkers, solitude-seekers and anyone for whom the effort is part of the reward.