Praia da Marinha

Marinha is a small beach at the foot of an ochre limestone cliff between Carvoeiro and Armação de Pêra, on the central Algarve. It is one of a series of pocket beaches along this stretch, and what distinguishes it is not the sand — there is about two hundred metres of it — but the rock: a double arch offshore, sea stacks, and a cliff path above with the view that has become shorthand for the region.

It has been photographed into fame relatively recently. The Algarve's reputation was built on larger resort beaches further west, and Marinha was a fisherman's cove; the arch became an image in the 2000s and the car park was formalised afterwards. The result is a beach whose visitor numbers are set by a clifftop viewpoint rather than by the sand below it.

The shore is coarse golden sand between rock arms, with clear water and a shelving entry that deepens quickly. Caves and stacks at both ends are reachable by swimming in calm conditions, and the limestone continues underwater, which makes the snorkelling better than the size of the beach suggests. Access is a stair of around a hundred steps cut into the cliff; there is no other way down.

There is almost nothing built. A car park, a seasonal café, and the Seven Hanging Valleys footpath that runs along the clifftop for six kilometres. Boat trips from Portimão and Benagil pass the arches through the morning, and the beach is fullest between eleven and four.

The arch-and-stack Algarve at its most concentrated, and the clifftop path above it is the better half of the visit. Go down the stairs early or not at all: by eleven the small beach is full and the car park is worse. The cliffs shed rock and the fenced sections are fenced for that.