Dusk in Tavira is a masterclass in seduction. On my first evening in the Algarve’s most easterly city – just 18 miles from the border with Spain – tangerine skies smudged by pillowy clouds unfurl above the old town, with its jumble of church towers and terracotta roofs.
For such a romantic spectacle, the best vantage point proves to be the seven-arch Roman bridge spanning the meandering Gilão river, where I join an appreciative crowd of locals and off-season travellers. Small talk ripples through the group, and a young Portuguese couple choose this moment to surreptitiously bolt a padlock bearing their initials to the metal lattice. Even the living statue gets off his box to soak it all in.
On either bank, street lamps gild the cobblestone promenades and pavement restaurants. Upriver, beyond a pretty bend of houses generously dubbed “Little Venice”, the terrain climbs towards the Serra do Caldeirão mountains; downriver, the landscape opens expansively, shifting through gleaming salt pans to where the lagoon system and beaches of Ria Formosa kiss the ocean, two miles away and out of sight. The scene could almost be stolen from another century.
I’m in this former fishing community, which is now geared towards tourism, in early March and the city is warming up, in every way, after winter’s hibernation. “Come back in the summer – there’s nightly music, local festivals. It’s a whole other place,” says Hélio Soares, birding guide and captain of my sun-powered boat tour with Solar Moves the next day. But I’ve already fallen for the serenity. With no other vessels in sight, we admire flamingos, ospreys, spoonbills and oystercatchers foraging in the rich marshlands.
The weather is bright but far too brisk to dive off the boat for a swim, so we settle for sightseeing: first, the village of Santa Luzia, the “octopus capital of Portugal”, with its battered fishing boats and wooden tackle sheds, and then Isla Tavira. At more than eight miles long, it’s the largest of the area’s barrier islands and boasts some of the Algarve’s wildest beaches, with several spots for naturists.
Most sunseekers will take the passenger ferry from the city to Praia da Ilha de Tavira, or drive four miles south to ride the quaint tourist train across the dunes to Praia do Barril, both of which have excellent facilities and restaurants. Instead, Hélio points out his favourite stretch of the island, the lesser-known Terra Estreita. We dock and I follow a long boardwalk to greet the Atlantic at a shell-strewn expanse of sand.
Back in the old town, I meet up with professional storyteller Maria Luísa Francisco from Genuine Algarve for a walk around Tavira’s monuments. It would be easy to quickly tick off the medieval castle and a handful of the city’s 21 churches – Igreja Santa Maria do Castelo and Igreja da Misericórdia are among the most elaborate, both built on sites of former mosques from the time of Moorish rule. But Luísa shares folktales like only a local can, even taking me to an archaeological dig boasting Phoenician relics from the eighth-century BC.
“Historically, we’ve always welcomed foreigners and benefitted from cultural exchange. I consider Tavira still a work in progress, although perhaps that’s an unpopular opinion these days,” Luísa says, referring to the growing sentiment against the number of foreign nationals settling in the Algarve.
Tavira is the closest Portuguese port to Morocco and its wealth peaked during the Age of Discovery, from the late 15th to 17th centuries, when Portuguese kings sponsored campaigns in north Africa and beyond. A series of seemingly biblical misfortunes followed – plague, earthquake, silted river channels and overfishing – but, as Luísa points out, the city still bears faded hallmarks of grandeur, including facades adorned with azulejo tiles and Juliet balconies, and distinctive “hipped” roofs allegedly inspired by trade links with the east.
I’m staying in a building dating back to 1888. Casa Beleza do Sul is a guesthouse lovingly renovated by owner Paola Boragine at the turn of the millennium using only natural and authentic materials. The results are stylish, light-filled rooms, some with self-catering kitchenettes, and twin sun terraces on which to take coffee. Sitting just one road back from the riverside main square of Praça da República, it couldn’t be more central; some of Tavira’s best restaurants are just a short amble away.
It’s easy in low season to get a table at the city’s most popular establishments. On successive evenings, I sample octopus caught in Santa Luzia on a bed of sweet potato at chic O Tonel, try local delicacies such as muxama (salt-cured tuna) at lively gastro-bar Come na Gaveta, and demolish a buttery catch of the day at Mesa Farta, an upmarket new opening.
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Seafood is king in Tavira, something I come to appreciate more deeply at the large municipal market on the edge of the city’s working salt pans. I’ve arranged to meet Inêz Ramos Mesquita, a passionate cook and culinary historian who runs local tour company Taste Algarve. Our chatter is punctuated by the thud of fish hitting fishmongers’ slabs, but Inêz demystifies the stalls of crustaceans, clams and cephalopods, finally picking the freshest snapper to take back for a cooking class.
“Fishing in Tavira has always been connected to the production of salt, which was used to preserve and export the catch. Both traditions date back well over two millennia, before even the Romans,” she says, adding that she prefers to use delicate, hand-harvested flor de sal as a final garnish for her dishes, rather than coarse or industrially processed alternatives.
Inêz’s elegant farmhouse and B&B, Monte do Álamo, sits amid 17 acres of carob, olive, almond and fig trees in the highlands overlooking Tavira. I whip up three courses under her tutelage, including a classic Algarve cataplana, a riot of peppers, tomatoes, fish and clams, steamed into a seafood stew. As we dine outside on the hilltop, I begin to suspect Tavira’s greatest draw might be how easily it offers up the surrounding countryside.
This is something horse-riding guide Sérgio Cupertino, founder of Cavalos à Ria, specialises in. It’s my last morning in the south of Portugal before I return home to Lisbon, so he adapts his classic sunset tour to meet me just after dawn at his avocado farm seven miles east of Tavira. We saddle up and trot into the Ria Formosa natural park, following empty river beaches through samphire and flowering cacti until we reach Cacela Velha. It deserves its reputation as the Algarve’s best-preserved village: stone cottages with brightly painted lintels climb towards a whitewashed 16th-century chapel overlooking the river and pearlescent ocean beyond.
“In summer, this cottage opens as a tasca (tavern) and we can rest here and enjoy oysters, champagne and this view. I hope you come back to Tavira, so you can know it in all seasons,” Sérgio says, echoing the invitations I’ve encountered throughout my time here. Now, finally, I’m convinced.
Doubles at Casa Beleza do Sul from €80. Tours with Solar Moves from €45; Genuine Algarve from €15; Taste Algarve from €125; and Cavalos à Ria from €85