Portimão

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Portimão is the Algarve's second city, spread along the west bank of the Arade river where it opens to the sea. This was the region's great fishing and canning port, and the story is told properly in the Museu de Portimão, an award-winning museum built into a former sardine cannery on the riverfront. The sardine is still the city's signature: the riverside restaurants grill them through the summer, and the city celebrates its sardine festival every August. Day to day, Portimão works as a real city: a long riverfront promenade, a marina, serious shopping, and boats leaving the quays for the coast's caves and upriver towards Silves. Praia da Rocha is effectively the city's beach quarter, ten minutes away: a huge run of sand below ochre cliffs, with a front that runs from family hotels to late-night bars. Inland, the Autódromo Internacional do Algarve has put Portimão on the world's sporting map, hosting Formula 1 and MotoGP on one of the most rollercoaster circuits in racing. Portimão suits people who want city and beach in one: working Portugal in the morning, big Atlantic sand in the afternoon, and grilled sardines by the river at night.