The things nobody tells you about the East Algarve

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Some warnings about the East Algarve are fair. There are mosquitoes. There are ants. The cicadas are loud, the summer air can be humid and the Ria Formosa has her less fragrant days. Consider yourself warned.

But that is only half the story. There are other things nobody really tells you about this corner of Portugal. The things you don't prepare for. The ones you slowly get used to, and then miss when you leave.

Places that are close, but feel completely different

One of the things we love most about the East Algarve is how quickly everything changes. Tavira feels nothing like Santa Luzia. Cabanas has a rhythm of its own. Drive a little further and Cacela Velha seems almost suspended in time.

Then turn away from the coast. Within minutes the beaches and the Ria are gone, and you are among orange groves, olive trees, small villages, old farmhouses and quiet roads winding into the hills. You haven't travelled far at all. But somehow, you're somewhere else.

Lunch may become the rest of your afternoon

You stop somewhere for grilled fish. Someone orders another bottle of wine. Coffee follows, then somebody suggests dessert, and suddenly it is four o'clock. That thing you were planning to do afterwards? Tomorrow.

At some point you realise lunch wasn't interrupting your day. Lunch was the day.

You may become slightly obsessed with oranges

They don't look particularly exciting when you see them growing everywhere. Then you taste one. In the right season, buy them from a small roadside stall or a local market. They are sweet, imperfect, sometimes enormous, and often still have a leaf attached.

After that, supermarket oranges are a little disappointing. Sorry.

Flamingos become strangely normal

The first time you see flamingos in the salt pans, you stop the car. The second time, you take photographs. A few months later you drive past and think: oh, the flamingos are there today.

Then you realise how ridiculous that is. There are flamingos beside the road and you have somehow become casual about it. Every now and then, it is worth stopping again.

August and November are almost two different places

Most people meet the Algarve in summer. August is loud, hot and wonderfully chaotic. The beaches are full, the terraces are busy and the towns stay up late. Then summer leaves, and something quite beautiful happens.

The noise disappears. You can walk along an almost empty beach on a sunny November afternoon. Parking is suddenly easy. Restaurants have time to talk to you. The light changes, and Tavira belongs to itself again. People often ask us when the best time to visit is, and we don't really have an answer anymore. It depends which East Algarve you want to meet, although the autumn version is very easy to fall for.

You start noticing the light

This one is hard to explain until you have seen it. Early in the morning and towards the end of the day, the light over the Ria seems to change everything. White houses turn almost golden. The water goes silver. The salt pans reflect the sky.

Nothing important is happening. And yet you stop to look, even after you have seen it a hundred times.

You start recognising people

Stay a little longer and something else happens. The person at the café knows how you take your coffee. You recognise the woman at the market. Someone waves when you walk past. You start saying bom dia to people whose names you don't actually know.

Tiny things. But they are often the difference between visiting somewhere and beginning to feel part of it.

Somehow, the days seem to have 48 hours

We can't really explain this one. You wake up, have a slow breakfast, go to the beach, stop somewhere for lunch, come home, read for a while, maybe fall asleep for twenty minutes, take a shower, sit on the terrace. And somehow it is only six o'clock, with a whole evening still ahead of you.

Maybe it is because nobody watches the clock quite so closely here. Maybe it is the long days and the light, or simply that you are not rushing from one thing to the next. Time stretches. You can do a lot, or absolutely nothing, and strangely both feel like a day well spent.

You will probably stop doing as much

This might be the biggest surprise. People arrive with lists. Tavira. Beach. Cacela Velha. Boat trip. Market. Faro. Ria Formosa. Restaurant booking. Another beach.

Then, somewhere around day three, something changes. The book comes out. Lunch gets longer. Nobody really wants to leave the terrace, and tomorrow's plans become "we'll see". That is usually when you have started to understand the East Algarve, and its slow days.

Leaving feels a little different too

On the last morning, all the ordinary things suddenly seem worth noticing. The coffee. The light through the shutters. The sounds outside. The walk you have done every morning without thinking about it. Even the Ria. Yes, even the Ria.

And somewhere on the way to the airport, you may catch yourself wondering when you could come back. Or what it would be like to stay for a month. Or a little longer.

That is the other thing nobody tells you about the East Algarve. You come here for a holiday and, without really noticing when it happened, the place gets under your skin. We understand. It happened to some of us too.