Since 1756 Faro has been the capital of the Algarve, Portugal's southernmost region, and with about 67,000 people in its municipality it is also its main city. Many travellers know it only for its airport, the gateway to the region's beaches, and head straight for the coast: a pity, because Faro has a compact, pleasant old town, a lively, very Portuguese city life and, right in front of it, one of the country's most beautiful natural environments, the Ria Formosa lagoon.
A little history
In Roman times the city was called Ossonoba and was an important port and administrative centre. After the Visigoths it was under Arab rule for five centuries, under the name Santa Maria de Harun, until in 1249 King Afonso III took it, completing the reconquest of Portuguese territory. In the fifteenth century a thriving Jewish community lived here: in 1487 Samuel Gacon printed a Hebrew Pentateuch in Faro, considered the first book printed in Portugal. In 1577 the seat of the Bishop of the Algarve moved here.
The city suffered two serious disasters: in 1596 it was sacked and burned by the Earl of Essex's English troops, who also carried off the bishop's library, and in 1755 it was badly damaged by the great earthquake. That is why most of today's buildings date from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
The Cidade Velha
The old town, the Cidade Velha, is enclosed by ancient walls of Roman and Arab origin. You enter through the Arco da Vila, a neoclassical gate completed in 1812 for Bishop Francisco Gomes do Avelar to a design by the Italian Francesco Saverio Fabri; storks have nested on top for generations.
The heart of the old town is Largo da Sé, a square shaded by orange trees, overlooked by the cathedral, consecrated in 1251 on the site of a mosque and, before that, a Roman temple. It mixes Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque elements, with azulejos and a painted eighteenth-century organ; from the tower the view takes in the rooftops and the lagoon. Also on the square are the Paço Episcopal, the eighteenth-century bishop's palace decorated with azulejos, and the town hall.
Nearby, in the Renaissance convent of Nossa Senhora da Assunção, is the Municipal Museum, with prehistoric and Roman finds: its best-known piece is a large Roman mosaic with the head of Neptune, found near the railway station. The church of São Francisco is lined with azulejos and gilded woodwork.
The Chapel of Bones and the new town
Outside the walls, the Carmo church, with its great Baroque facade, hides behind the altar the Capela dos Ossos, built in 1816 with the bones and skulls of more than a thousand Carmelite friars. The modern town, around Rua de Santo António, the pedestrian shopping street, and Jardim Manuel Bivar, by the marina, is full of cafés, pastry shops and fish restaurants. Also worth seeing are the Museu Regional do Algarve, devoted to the region's folk traditions, and the early nineteenth-century Lethes theatre.
The Ria Formosa and the islands
The whole coast around Faro is protected by the Ria Formosa Natural Park, a lagoon some 60 kilometres long, from Praia de Faro to Cacela Velha, separated from the ocean by a chain of sandy islands and peninsulas. It is a world of channels, salt marshes, salt pans and dunes, vital for birds: you can see flamingos, herons, spoonbills and the rare purple swamphen. It is also a major nursery for clams and oysters.
Ferries and boat trips to the islands leave from the quay near the Arco da Vila: Ilha da Culatra, with the fishing villages of Culatra and Farol, Ilha Deserta (or da Barreta), the southernmost point of mainland Portugal, with a wild beach and a single restaurant, and Ilha de Faro, which can also be reached by car or bus past the airport.
Surroundings
About ten kilometres away, near Estói, are the Roman ruins of Milreu, a large villa with baths, fish mosaics and the remains of a temple, and in the village the splendid Palácio de Estói, a Rococo palace now a pousada. To the east are the town of Olhão, with its waterfront market, and lovely Tavira, with the beaches of Ilha de Tavira, Barril and Cabanas. To the west the coast continues with the resorts of Vale do Lobo and Quinta do Lago, Vilamoura and Albufeira.
Getting there
The airport is about 7 kilometres from the centre, linked by bus and taxi. Faro has trains to Lisbon (about three and a half hours on Alfa Pendular and Intercidades services) and to the other coastal towns on the regional Algarve line. By car it is reached on the A2 motorway from Lisbon and the A22, the Via do Infante, which crosses the whole region.