Loulé, Algarve
Alte
A whitewashed village built around cold springs, with a waterfall you can swim in
Written by Tiago, who grew up in Albufeira and drives this inland route most days.
Alte is what people picture when they imagine inland Portugal and then fail to find: white houses, chimneys with lacework cut into them, cobbles, and a stream running through the middle of it all. The water is the point. Two springs surface at the top of the village — Fonte Pequena and, a few hundred metres down, Fonte Grande — and feed a stream lined with stone pools, plane trees and picnic tables.
A little further on, the same stream drops about twenty-four metres over a cliff into a pool at the bottom. That is the Queda do Vigario, and on a hot day in a wet year it is the best swim in the Algarve that has no sand anywhere near it.
- Parking
- Free in the village and generally easy, which is not true of anywhere on the coast. There is more space near Fonte Pequena. For the waterfall, people park by the cemetery and walk down.
- Getting there on foot
- The village itself is flat enough, on cobbles. The waterfall is the effort: about ten minutes down a steep paved track from the cemetery car park, and the same back up, which is the half people forget to budget for.
- What's there
- Toilets and changing facilities at Fonte Grande, picnic tables, public barbecues, and a snack bar that opens in the season. Cafes and restaurants in the village. Nothing at all at the waterfall itself.
- Swimming
- Yes, and it is the reason many people come. The pool under the Queda do Vigario is deep and cold, and the pools at Fonte Grande are shallower and better for paddling. Nobody is lifeguarding any of it, the rock is slippery, and depth changes with the season.
- Shade
- Genuinely good, which makes it the coolest stop on the run in every sense. The plane trees over Fonte Grande hold shade all day and the valley at the waterfall is shaded by fig trees.
- With children
- Very good. Shallow water at Fonte Grande, tables to eat at, ducks, and space to run about. The waterfall walk is steep enough that small children will want carrying back up.
- Without a car
- Poorly served and a long way — Alte is roughly twenty-five kilometres inland, in the Loule district rather than Albufeira, and the connections are built for residents rather than visitors. Realistically this is a car or a tour.
- When to go
- Spring, when the stream is full and the valley is green. The waterfall depends entirely on rain: after a wet winter it is a genuine waterfall, and by late August in a dry year it can be a trickle into a stagnant pool. Ask before you build a day around it.
- How long to stay
- An hour for the village and the springs. Two to three if you are swimming at the waterfall and eating in the village, which is how it is worth doing.
Going with Tiago
The coast is only half the Algarve.
The last stop on The Other Algarve, and where the medronho tasting happens. 4.5 hours in a tuk tuk, your group only, picked up at your hotel door and dropped back after — Paderne, Alte and the road between them, without hiring a car or piecing together buses that were built for commuters.
Two adults and two children is €246 — for a private vehicle and a driver for the whole inland run, every stop, the lift there and back, and the photographs.
- Private. Your group only, up to 4 of you in the tuk tuk, never shared with strangers.
- Picked up at your hotel door and dropped back after — no hire car, rural timetable or unsurfaced castle road to work out.
- The photographs are included. 15 to 20 of them, on your WhatsApp the same evening, and nothing to sign up to on the day.
And nothing to risk on it if I'm more than fifteen minutes late and haven't messaged you, the tour is free, if the weather's against us I move you to a better day, as many times as you like while you're here, and I never cut a tour short to get back for the next one.
10% off, today
There's a code that takes 10% off.
Leave me your email and it's on screen straight away — ten per cent off, so that family of four comes to €221.40. The week plan comes with it: seven days in Albufeira without a hire car, and which beaches you genuinely can't walk to.
Code applies to The Secret Beaches and The Other Algarve. One per booking.