Praia da Rocha

Praia da Rocha, two kilometres south of Portimão town centre, is one of the finest beaches on the Algarve coast. The beach is broad and long — around 1.5 kilometres — backed by dramatic ochre and red sandstone cliffs that have been sculpted by the Atlantic into arches, stacks, and caves. The sand is golden and firm underfoot, and the sea is generally calm enough for swimming from May to October.

The Fort of Santa Catarina stands at the western end of the beach, a seventeenth-century fortification that once guarded the mouth of the Arade River. From its walls you get the best view of the coastline and the opposite bank, where the village of Ferragudo and the Fort of São João do Arade complete the scene. The beach is busy in high season — July and August — but the scale means you can usually find space.

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A story
The ochre sandstone cliffs behind Praia da Rocha were used by the Romans to quarry stone for construction. The beach itself was already celebrated as a beauty spot in the late nineteenth century — one of the first in the Algarve to attract tourists — and the first hotel opened here in 1934. The resort development that followed in the 1960s and 1970s was not always sensitive to what made the beach remarkable, but the beach itself remains extraordinary.

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