Europe's southwestern tip is a place of stark beauty, prone to sudden fogs and blustery sea breezes. Jutting into the sea, the twin headlands of Sagres and Cape St. Vincent were places of mystery and awe to ancient Romans and early Christians.

For Prince Henry the Navigator, this finger of land pointing into uncharted waters was the obvious place to site the school for explorers that kicked off Europe's Age of Discoveries 500 years ago.

History buffs can visit the clifftop chapel where Henry once prayed, walk the walls of a fortress sacked by Sir Francis Drake or look out over waters where Lord Nelson battled the Spanish fleet. Birdwatchers flock here to watch waves of migrators rounding this monumental corner of land on their way between Europe and Africa.

But most visitors come here for neither buildings nor birds, but for beaches.

A bevy of beaches

The 60-mile coastline running along the far west of Portugal's Algarve region offers some of the continent's best bathing spots with an amazing variety of beaches from the translucent shallows of the Ria de Alvor lagoon to the thunderous surf of west coast strands like Bordeira and Arrifana.

European vacationers have been flocking to the Algarve since the 1970s, and mass tourism has turned much of the region's central strip into an unsightly jumble of towering hotels, pizzerias and Irish pubs.

Thankfully, the gentle, warm-water eastern coast near the Spanish border and the more rugged west have so far escaped the worst excesses of overdevelopment and are looking increasingly attractive to savvy Americans seeking to stretch their exchange-weak dollars.

The Ria de Alvor is a mild start to the Algarve's wild west. This blue lagoon is edged on the east by the town of Alvor, once a quaint fishing village, now a bustling tourist center that still has some great restaurants along waterfront where freshly caught bream, bass and cuttlefish sizzle on vast quayside barbecues.

Visiting bathers share this protected estuary with yachtsmen, a multitude of seabirds and old men paddling in plaid shirts and rolled-up pants to hunt shellfish at low tide. The open sea is short walk over the dunes to Meia Praia, a four-mile crescent of white sand curving toward the city of Lagos.

Deserted apart from a few nudists at its eastern end, Meia Praia becomes a boisterous family beach near the town where locals take a rowboat ferry across the narrow Bensafrim river to reach the sands.

Surf 'n' turf

Lagos, the port where the Portuguese explorers set out for their first voyages down the coast of Africa, still has something of a swashbuckling air with its rivermouth fortress and medieval walls holding a warren of narrow streets that fill in summer nights with a youthful, bar-hopping crowd who use the city as base camp for surfing trips.

There's also culture to be found in Lagos' art galleries or open-air concerts beneath the city walls. The church of Santo Antonio is lined with intricate wood carvings coated in gold leaf plundered from Brazil. On a grimmer note, a 15th-century building near the river is believed to be the site of Europe's first African slave market.

Running south from Lagos is the Costa d'Oiro — the golden coast — a string of sandy coves tucked among crumbling sandstone cliffs leading the saltwater caves and weird rock formations at the Ponta da Piedade headland — the ideal place for romantic sunsets.

All this coastline naturally brings other attractions. It's no surprise the Portuguese eat more fish than any other Europeans. At the restored market hall in Lagos, the array of freshly caught seafood is dazzling, from tiny sardines and baby squid to the great snakelike silver scabbard fish or torpedo-sized tuna.

Farther west, the coast gets progressively wilder. The beach at Martinhal just before Sagres rises to a mountainous sand dune, but is exposed to powerful southwesterlies that make it a challenging favorite for windsurfers. For those willing to climb down the steps cut into the cliffs, Praia do Beliche is a wide triangle of pale sand sheltered from the wind by the twin capes of Sagres and Saint Vincent.

North of Sagres, the coast has some of Europe's best surfing. The rugged, wind-swept landscape here seems a world away from the gentle waters and groves of almond and citrus of the central Algarve. The beaches here are remote and undeveloped, but are great for those hoping to ride the waves, or simply to get away from the crowds to soak up the sun and the sound of the surf.

Copyright © 2008 The Seattle Times Company