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The Algarve
The Algarve
Portugal is a very varied country, and the Algarve is no exception. Although the whole region has a shoreline, it's coast is anything but monotonous. On the Vicentine Coast, to the West, the landscape is dominated by high cliffs, with a few beaches here and there, some of which turn out to be well-kept secrets due to how difficult access is. From Sagres, where the famous naval school was established and served as a base for Portuguese Discoveries, the coast becomes progressively less rugged, small bays begin to appear and sand sections increase in size.
When you come to the Ria de Alvor and further west to the Ria Formosa, there are wetlands whose ecosystems constitute a Natural Reserve, where there is almost no construction or human occupation and it is still possible to live with the overwhelming beauty of nature in its pure and untarnished state.
When the western part of Algarve (Barlavento) gives way to the Eastern part (Sotavento), on the edge of Albufeira, the shoreline has already left behind the memories of the cliffs and ridges that mark the coastal line around Sagres, and is dominated by extensive stretches of fine and clear sand, where it is still possible to discover wind strips of beach without the single occupant. Since the 1960s, the Algarve has experienced a great development of Tourism, benefiting from its geography, the undeniable natural beauty and the climate, with many hours of sun and few days of rain throughout the year, of its water always at an inviting temperature, usually between 21 and 25 degrees Celsius (high 60s - mid 70s Fahrenheit), and also from how over the last 50 years the region has been endowed with excellent tourism infrastructures in the form of hotels golf and Sport & Leisure.
History
History
The earliest historical records of occupation of the Algarve date back to the Roman Empire: the first permanent inhabitants were the Conii, a tribe that was ethnically and linguistically close to Celtic and Lusitanian people, with strong links to the Tartessians, Siberian natives of the area from the Mediterranean coast of Andalusia (near Cadiz) to the east of the present Algarve.
The geographical situation and the closeness to the sea led to the region being linked to the Mediterranean civilization, such as the Greek or the Carthaginian. With the Rise of Rome the occupation of Hispania took place, but the Conii managed to maintain a reasonable degree of autonomy and a good relationship with the new occupants, but that peace would end in 141 BC when an attempt of the revolt against Rome was won by the legions of Fabius Maximus Servilianus, leading to the definite integration of the territory and its occupants in the Roman Empire.
With the fall of Rome the Iberian Peninsula was also invaded and occupied by barbarian tribes such as the Vandals, Alans, Suevi and Visigoths, but centuries as part of Roman Empire and the increasing force of Christianity, which arrived in this region around the fourth Century of our era, led to the region's culture of not being greatly altered by the new occupants.
But it would be the next wave of occupation, by the Arabs, that began in 715 and lasted for over 500 years, which would leave the deepest Mark, starting with the name we now call the Algarve, which derives from the Arabic “Al Gharb”, or “the West” (used to designate the Western part of Al Andalus).
Throughout the five centuries of Arab occupation the region varied between periods of conflict and other of economic development, and there were reports that when Silves, the main Arab town in Algarve in this period, was conquered in 1189 by the Portuguese King D. Sancho, the city was “ten times greater” and more fortified then the city of Lisbon, which even discounting some of the chronicler’s possible exaggeration is impressive, because at the time of its conquest by the first Portuguese King D. Afonso Henriques in 1147, Lisbon would have about 100,000 inhabitants, at a time when London or Paris were home to no more than 10,000 people.
The Arab occupation would end in 1249, when King the D. Afonso III took possession of Faro in a relatively peaceful manner, but the five centuries of Arab influence are still felt today in the Portuguese language, architecture, gastronomy and culture in general, contributing to make the Algarve in what has always been through the ages, a crossroads of people and cultures that has always managed to maintain its own identity and mentality, with an openness to the outside that contributed to make it, from the first data steps in the years 1960, the main tourist region of Portugal and one of the main European destinations.
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