Tavira Guide

Beaches in Tavira

Tavira coastline is calm and peaceful, with extremely inviting eleven kilometres of fine white sand beaches and very warm water. The braches are crossed by Ria Formosa Natural Reserve, offering pleasant boat trips and the chance to observe the typical wetland flora and fauna, most particularly the water birds. It is estimated that, counting both the resident and migratory species that can be seen here, Ria Formosa hosts more than 30 thousand birds each year.

Tavira Island along with Praia do Barril, are the 2 most popular beaches in Tavira. But you might be interested in exploring less populated places which are often only known frequented by locals. In this page you will find a listing of the available beaches and directions in how to get there.

Tavira Island

Because this is the most popular and important beach in the Tavira council we dedicated a whole page to it where you can find everything about Tavira Island. From camping facilities to boat schedules, you will also find there a link to the tide schedules — which actually applies to all beaches accross the Algarve coast –, very handy when it comes to planning at what time you want to hit the beach.
The access to Tavira Island is provided by boats from Quatro Águas peer in Tavira. The parking areas are fairly large and organised. The beach has basic support facilities, like restaurants and toilets, and is supervised during the bathing season. This beach often holds the blue flag, proof of its environmental quality and superiority.

Praia do Barril

Barril is one of the beaches in Tavira Island to the West of Santa Luzia, near the touristic Serviced Apartments of Pedras d’El-Rei and within a few Kilometers from Tavira. The access to Barril beach is made by a small bridge that crosses Ria Formosa followed by a footpath that crosses the Island to the sea side. During the high season the Island crossing is also done by a mini train that ensures a regular service.
Barril beach is one of the calmest beaches in the Algarve’s South coast, even escaping from the high season floods that unfortunately are common to other beaches of the region. Its waters are calm and warm during Spring and Summer; in the less sunny Winter days, it’s a great place for a beach walk, some jogging or even bird watching. This beach regularly holds the blue flag, proving its superiority and environmental quality.

Praia de Cabanas

To the East side of Ilha de Tavira you will find Ilha de Cabanas, a narrow but long strip of land before the last bar across the river estuary to the East. The beach is situated in front of the village of Cabanas, whose origin goes back to the old days of tuna fishing in this area, and which even today remains a picturesque fishing village. From the waterfront at Cabanas, fishing boats can be seen anchored in the Ria Formosa.
The branch of the Ria Formosa that separates the Island of Cabanas from the mainland is quite narrow and you can cross it by foot at low tide. The preferred means of access is, however, by boat, a journey that only takes a few minutes from Cabanas. Walking along the beach is a pleasant experience and you only have to walk a short distance to be able to enjoy a few moments of peace and quiet and perfect isolation. On returning to Cabanas, you can visit one of the many restaurants along the waterfront and sample the local oysters and clams picked in the nearby nurseries, as well as the various octopus dishes.

Note that in order to help preserve this area, you should cross over the sand dunes using the raised wooden footpaths provided.

There are boats to the island (in the form of a taxi service) from the waterfront at Cabanas (signposted and roughly one and a half kilometres from the EN 125). The parking area is organised. The beach has basic support facilities (restaurant and toilets) and is supervised during the bathing season.

Praia da Terra Estreita

To the East of Praia do Barril, Tavira Island narrows, resulting in a strip of sand with arounf 50 m wide, the so-called Praia da Terra Estreita (the Narrow Land Beach).
This beach is also known as Praia de Santa Luzia, as it is from this picturesque fishing village from where the boats set off to cross to the island. The boat ride over the Ria Formosa shows you the pots used for capturing octopus and the many local fishing boats, as well as the typical marshland flora and fauna. The beach here is a large one and is more deserted than at the neighbouring beaches of  Barril Beach or Tavira Island, providing complete peace and quiet and isolation. On this beach, you can admire the eye-catching flowers of the sea daffodils and enjoy a swim in the warm seawater, and in the summer it is common to see great profusions of green seaweed next to the island, giving you the strange sensation that you are swimming in a warm soup. Back in Santa Luzia, the beautiful avenue along the waterfront is filled with restaurants and bars where you can enjoy some of the best shellfish picked in the Ria, as well as some typical dishes such as the tuna salad known as “estopeta de atum”.

In order to help preserve this area, you should cross over the sand dunes using the raised wooden footpaths provided.

There are boats to the beach from Santa Luzia, signposted on the EN 125 and roughly three kilometres from the car park at Praia do Barril. The parking area is fairly large and organised. The beach has basic support facilities (restaurant and toilets) and is supervised during the bathing season.

Praia do Lacém

This small lagoon beach is surrounded by farmland, amongst allotments, vineyards and dryland orchards. The beach is reached by a small cross-country footpath which accompanies an occasional stream, along which there grows some thick riverside vegetation, with reed beds and lots of brambles. The beach itself is quite narrow with some low-lying sand dunes where the main plant is European beachgrass. The predominant habitat is in fact the salt-marsh, and the smell of the sea and the mudflats is intense. Beyond the narrow branch of Ria Formosa, you will find Cabanas Island, very thin and low in this area and only covered with some small grasses (sea couch), not offering any great resistance to the advances of the sea. Here you can observe various shore-birds calmly scouring the mud with their long beaks in search of food. If you have a private boat, you can cross over the branch of the Ria Formosa and reach the sand barriers of Cabanas or Cacela.

There is a dirt track from the EN 125, heading towards Lacém over a distance of roughly 1,5 Km. There are no parking areas, and the beach, which has no support facilities or supervision.