Parque Natural do Sudoeste Alentejano e Costa Vicentina

The Parque Natural do Sudoeste Alentejano e Costa Vicentina is one of Europe's great coastal nature reserves, protecting over 110,000 hectares of cliffs, dunes, beaches, and interior scrubland along the southwestern corner of Portugal. Within the municipality of Odemira, it covers the entire coastal strip from Praia de Odeceixe in the south to beyond Vila Nova de Milfontes in the north.

The park is mostly wild and unwalled — there are no gates, no entry fees, and no visitor centres of consequence. What it offers is dramatic coastal walking, some of the finest beaches in Europe, and a landscape of impressive windswept cliffs. The Rota Vicentina long-distance walking route passes through the park in its entirety, and sections can be walked as day hikes directly from the coast road.

things to do sight
A story
This nature park was created specifically to prevent the overdevelopment that consumed the Algarve to the south. Most of the Algarve's coast was built up during the 1970s and 1980s with virtually no planning controls. The Costa Vicentina escaped because a series of conservation designations — culminating in the 1995 park — arrived just in time. Today it holds one of the last stretches of wild Atlantic coastline in southern Europe.