Overview

• Self-guided tour by mountain bike or e-mountainbike
• 8 days/ 7 nights/ 6 daily tours
• The daily tours average 50km and 1.000 metres of ascent
• Total distance: 290km
• Extra days can be booked on request
• Travel beginning is possible at any date
• The routes are alternately flat or hilly on well-paved nature trails and MTB trails. In between there are always steep climbs and descents as well as some stream crossings. The area is sparely inhabited on the first three routes, and you literally ride right through the "outback".

Holiday and bike tour description

Day 1 Arrival

Individual arrival or by taxi from the airport to the hotel in Faro.
 

Day 2  Stage 1 Faro - Azinhal - Vaqueiros 45km/ 840hm

Transfer to "Azinhal" at the Spanish border, there on the bike and down to the border river Guadiana. On a beautiful riverside path along the impressive river, then into the "Serra do Caldeirão" the hardly inhabited hilly hinterland. Through steep alleys of "Odeleite", the last larger village on the tour, up to a deep blue lake. Afterward, you drive through spacious pine plantations, fields with low shrubbery, broom and rockrose bushes, a single sea of flowers in spring. The air is aromatized by wild thyme, sage and rosemary. Along the way or in the distance, small hamlets with whitewashed houses. A lonely area that has remained natural, pure nature. At the end, the small village of Vaqueiros where we spend the night.

Day 3  Stage 2 Vaqueiros - Barranco do Velho 43km/ 1,420hm

Today's tour is characterised by constant uphill and downhill. The landscape has changed. Spruce, almond and eucalyptus trees and many types of bushes, especially medron bushes, line the path. You reach Cachopo, a quiet village with an unspoilt character, the village square with a cosy café invites you to take a break. Then continue through dense, spicy-scented spruce groves, over hilltops with magnificent views of the coastal area. After "Castelão" deep down to the river "Ribeira de Odeleite", over an adventurous stone bridge and then through the river valley in the shade of lush and species-rich vegetation. Then uphill to the village of Parizes, along the Rota da Cortiça, with many Cork oaks, to Barranco do Velho and the Tia Bia accommodation, which offers a famous dinner, roast wild boar with potatoes.
 

Day 4  Stage 3 Barranco do Velho - São Bartolomeu de Messines 39km/ 550hm

A beautiful panoramic path on a hill with spectacular views of the coastal area leads up to a hilltop. From there it is an enjoyable descent through a forest of gnarled holm oaks and along a small river to a high trail that runs parallel to the coast. Via the small Algarve-typical villages of "Salir" and "Benafim" and through the beautiful river valley of the "Ribeira de Alte", you cycle to the small town of Alte, one of the most beautiful places in the Algarve. Passing a spring with a beautiful picnic area, you cycle along narrow cobbled streets through the town. The area is now dominated by agricultural land, with Orange plantations and varied tree crops, until you reach São Bartolomeu de Messines, where your accommodation is in a beautifully renovated 16th century building.
 

Day 5  Stage 4 São Bartolomeu de Messines - Caldas de Monchique 47km/ 1.100hm

Immediately after the start on a hill with a magnificent view of the deep blue reservoir "Barragem do Funcho", which lies embedded in the green hills of the Serra. After a short relaxing descent through a beautiful valley, you reach a winding lakeside path. You cycle through lush vegetation with broom, cistus and medronho bushes along the lake. At the end, over a high dam wall and in a steep descent to the next equally idyllic lake, the "Barragem do Arade". Here, too, along the shore and then on a single trail through wooded hilly terrain through the valley of the Ribeiro de Odeluca and below the second highest mountain in the Algarve to the spa town of Caldas do Monchique, which lies in a shady valley surrounded by lush vegetation.
 

Day 6  Stage 5 Caldas de Monchique - Lagos 62km/ 1,170hm

Right at the beginning, the highest mountain of the Algarve, the Foia, awaits you at 902 m.a.s.l. Steep serpentine paths lead up to this peak. A fantastic panoramic view of the Serra, the west and south coast awaits you. Then a short and a long great Sigletrain descent down to the sea, where the largest oyster farm in the Algarve is located. At low tide, you can see the nets with the oysters sticking out of the sea on stilts. A beautiful long path leads along the wide beach "Meia Praia" to Lagos. We cross a bridge over the imposing marina to reach the historic city, drive past the old city walls, the slave market and the "Bandeira" fort and arrive at the "Costa dOiro", the most beautiful stretch of coastline in the Algarve, with its golden-yellow, uniquely shaped Cliffs and rocky outcrops jutting steeply out of the sea.
 

Day 7  Stage 6 Lagos - Cabo de São Vicente Sagres 54km/ 930 hm

First to the Ponta da Piedade lighthouse, the southernmost point of the Costa d'Oiro, and from there along a hiking trail along the cliff edge and past four beautiful beaches to Salema. It goes up and down constantly. The highest point is at 80 m.a.s.l. at the black granite Cliffs "Rocha Negra", from where you have a breathtaking view over the entire coastal area. After a short stretch inland, the route follows the coast again, this time with steep ascents and descents to three bathing bays surrounded by steep Cliffs. At Sagres, you cross a steppe-like plateau that leads to the mystical place of , the southwestern point of Europe. From there back on a beautiful coastal road to Sagres, the legendary place where the seafaring school was located, where Portugal's best seafarers were trained, who later discovered the world's oceans. The town is situated on a promontory at the tip of which is the extensive, carefully renovated fortress "Fortaleza de Sagres".
 

Tag 8  Journey back