Tavira, to the east of Faro in the south-east corner of Portugal, is one of the most photogenic towns along the Algarve coast, sporting white-washed houses topped with decorative chimneys and pyramid shaped Roman-tiled roofs, set among orange, fig and almond trees.
Although tourism is now the main industry, the resort is still a working
fishing village with a compact old centre, and more modern development
has largely kept to the resort outskirts. The rest of the area is rural
and largely unspoilt, bounded to the SW by the Ria Formosa Nature
Reserve and by the tiny, charming fishing village of Cabanas to the E.