The Algarve's Capital — the Ria Formosa lagoon system, the bone chapel of the Igreja do Carmo, fresh cataplana and grilled fish at the Mercado Municipal, and a real Portuguese city beneath the tourist coast
Faro is the administrative and cultural capital of the Algarve — the sun-bleached southern coast that drew northern Europeans to Portugal from the 1970s onwards. While most Algarve visitors fly into Faro's airport and immediately transfer to resort towns, the city itself rewards staying: its walled Old Town (Cidade Velha) preserves a Moorish street plan, Roman and medieval walls, and the 13th-century Sé cathedral. The Ria Formosa, a coastal lagoon system of salt marshes, barrier islands, and tidal channels stretching 60 km east from Faro, is one of the most important wetland ecosystems in Eur…
Faro's history spans Neolithic settlement, Roman Ossonoba (a significant port and regional capital), Moorish Harun (from which the name Faro derives — the Arabic word for 'bay' or 'light'), and Portuguese reconquest. The Moors held the city from 713 to 1249 CE, and the street plan of the Old Town still follows the Moorish grid. Alfonso III of Portugal took the city in 1249, completing the Portuguese reconquest of the Algarve (the last Moorish territory taken by Portugal, 250 years before the Spanish reconquered Granada). The Bishop of the Algarve moved his seat to Faro in 1577. The city was l…