Vila do Bispo

Beyond Lagos the Algarve thins into heath and cliff, and at the far south-western corner of Europe stands Vila do Bispo, a low whitewashed town between two seas. This is the end of the continent: from the town, roads run west to the lighthouse of Cabo São Vicente and south to Sagres, where the land stops and the Atlantic arrives from three directions.

Where the land runs out

The municipality takes in both Sagres and the Cabo de São Vicente, the south-westernmost point of mainland Europe, with its great lighthouse on the cliff above the meeting of two currents. The wilder western coast, the Costa Vicentina, runs north from here in unbroken sand and shale cliffs, walked by the long-distance trails that end at the cape; the fortress town of Sagres holds Prince Henry’s school of navigation at the other corner. In the town itself, life moves slowly around the main square, and the surrounding fields carry the prehistoric standing stones that dot this end of the Algarve.

What to see

• The whitewashed streets and square of the town
• The Cabo de São Vicente lighthouse at Europe’s south-western tip
• The fortress town of Sagres to the south
• The beaches and cliffs of the Costa Vicentina
• The prehistoric menhirs in the surrounding fields

Practical information

Vila do Bispo stands in the Faro district at the far west of the Algarve, about forty minutes by road from Lagos. The wind at the cape is constant and the coastal paths are exposed: bring a windproof layer and closed shoes, and take care on the clifftop edges, especially with children.

Image credit: Vila do Bispo – Algarve by Bextrel — CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.