Lagos to Cabo de São Vicente via Sagres

About this drive

The drive from Lagos along the southwest Algarve coast to Cabo de São Vicente covers the most rugged and unbuilt section of the Portuguese coast — a stretch that the resort development of the 1970s and 1980s largely missed. The coast road hugs cliffs that drop sheer to small beaches: Praia do Amado, Praia da Arrifana, Praia do Castelejo — each one backed by cliffs rather than hotels, accessible by rough tracks from the main road. Sagres, near the southwestern tip, was where Henry the Navigator supposedly established his school of navigation in the fifteenth century, training the explorers who mapped the coast of Africa and opened the sea route to India. The Fortaleza de Sagres occupies the rocky promontory; the wind inside the fortress walls gives a sense of what exposed Atlantic headland weather actually feels like at close range. Cabo de São Vicente itself is the most southwesterly point in continental Europe — a lighthouse on a 75-metre cliff above open Atlantic water. The sunset from the cape is among the most spectacular in Portugal, and enough people know it that the small parking area fills up an hour before sunset in summer. Come earlier in the day or in the off-season to have it largely to yourself.

Stops along the way

• 🏛️ Cabo de São Vicente · Historical

  A lighthouse on Europe's southwesternmost point, once believed by sailors to mark the edge of the known world.