Most Overrated / Portugal
The most overrated beach in Portugal.
The franchise-energy beach. The one everyone photographs and nobody enjoys. The hype machine built it; the roast is earned. And because we’re not cruel without cause — here’s the redemption: the beach that does what this one promised.
The roast
Portugal · Vila do Bispo
No. 5
Praia da Cordoama
Two lists send you to a beach you should not swim at.
Praia da Cordoama is on two of the three best-of lists we read, and its own guide says it is not really a swimming beach: the water is cold, the currents are strong and the shorebreak can be powerful. On good days paragliders launch from the headland above it and soar on the thermals. It is deliberately undeveloped. The guide's crowding index calls it very busy from May to October, and the same guide's text says it is rarely crowded, because the remote location and the lack of facilities keep visitors away. We print both. We measured 401 metres of sand.
Best: August (18.4 °C), then October and July →
Portugal · The Algarve
No. 10
Benagil Cave
Overrated.
The Insta-famous sea cave with the hole in the roof. You've seen the photo. Here's what the photo doesn't include: a queue of kayaks and paddleboards outside the cave like it's a Costco, a floor that's wet rock, water that's cold and chest-deep, and a ceiling that's been photographed so many times it has its own agent. The cave is genuinely impressive geologically. The experience is a theme park ride without the ride.
Best: May, Sept–Oct for fewer crowds →
Portugal · Albufeira
Praia do Castelo
Eighty steep steps to a cove named after a rock.
Praia do Castelo is named, Visit Portugal says, for a castle-shaped rock formation at its eastern end. We measured 183 metres of sand. You get there by about 80 steep steps from a clifftop car park with 15 to 20 free spaces, off a turning the guide calls easy to miss. There are no toilets, no showers and no sunbeds to rent. The cove fills quickly, and in July and August it feels busy by 11am. With any swell, waves funnel through the gap and it becomes dangerous; the guide says to check from the clifftop before you go down. Small, pretty, and it turns on you when the sea is up.
Best: August (19.5 °C), then July and June →
