After completing another bit of the famous Algarve hiking track a few days ago, we were ready for even more yesterday.
In my previous post I told you about the section from the little beach village of Salema until a point were we could already see the Forte de Vera Cruz were we turned around.
https://blurt.blog/blurt/@betterthanhome/a-foggy-hike-in-salema
As we want so see as much as possible from this hiking track we went for another exploration yesterday.
We started at Praia das Furnas a beach further south west of were we´ve been last time. It´s one of these secluded and not heavily frequented beaches. A lot of hippies and nudists are here, were they feel more comfortable like at any other beach here on the Algarve.
The beach itself is amazing and is in no way inferior to the others. Crystal clear water, golden sand, Sandstone and lots of caves to explore and rocks to climb on.
Our plan was the walk from here towards Praia da Figueira from where we could easily climb to the Forte de Vera Cruz. But again, same like last time, we did not consider the tide and since it was almost high tide, there was no way to get to the other beach. I´m not sure if it would have worked with a low tide so it doesn´t matter at all.
We decided to explore that beautiful beach before we give it another try from a different starting point.
It took us a while until we realised that we could climb the hill on the western end of the beach near the car park as we saw someone climbing up there.
I say climbing because it definitely wasn´t just an easy walk up there. Very steep and narrow paths but still relatively easy if you are fit. Wouldn´t go uo there together with my Mum. :)
But, no matter how exhausting or difficult a climb is, it´s almost always worth the effort. From up here you have an absolutely amazing and picturesque view over that beach. Again, other than the foggy days before, we had blue sky and no clouds.
On top of that hill, towards the west it looked like you have endless hiking trails leading you further towards Sagres
On the way back down to the beach I took a different path and found the perfect front-row seat. No idea who had that brilliant idea of building a small terrace up here, but he/she is a genius.
Most likely the same genius who has built that cute little house at the foot of this hill. Only downside is, that it sits in the middle of a lane of wind what can make it quite uncomfortable at certain times.
As I don´t like to give up so easily we had a quick coffe and gave that Forte another try. This time we parked our car near Praia da Figueira from where it was easy to reach the Forte. Only a short walk until we reached the beach from where we could already see the Forte.
Thanks to the rain in the past weeks it´s finally green here what makes it much more enjoyable to walk such paths.
After a short but very steep climb we finally reached the Forte de Vera Cruz, or at least what is left of it. There are only a few walls left what makes it pretty hard to imagine how it looked like.
But only to see the crystal clear water from up here it was worth it.
