I was probably most excited for Albuferia during our whole trip, not only that I enjoy beaches the most but we are talking about cave beaches here, imagine yourself sitting on a beach which can only be reached through boat, a beach which is almost like a cave covered from all sides except sea in front and an opening on top where the sunlight comes from.
It was around 12:00 that we reached Alburefia and checked-in in out hostel. As we wanted to do the boat ride which is the only option to explore beach caves we headed directly to one of the agents shop and inquired about the next available slots. To our luck there were 6 tickets available in the next 40 seater boat which was scheduled at 2:30 PM and the next slot available was on next day. As we had only one day for albuferia we decided to do the boar ride on same day.
Lazy relaxing boat ride is the perfect combination of the two most popular things to do in Albufeira: Dolphin watching and cave beach tour. The coastline and beaches of Algrave are gorgeous and the seas are home to a huge array of marine wildlife, including dolphins. Also as there are many beach which can only be reached by boat so its best to take a boat tour and then visit the beach which you like most and are accessible by road. Although many beaches were quite similar but all of them were lovely. Rocks standing in between the sea, caves, long stretched coastline, the boat ride covers every-kind of beach you will find in Algrave and of-course the most famous cave beach Benagil. The boat in itself is super cool with open place to sit, Wifi to video chat with your friends and family and captain serving beer ;). The total boat ride was for around 3 hours covering more than 15 beaches. As the sea was quite rough that day we were not able to go inside Benagil beach, there were many who have came through their own small boat and some cam swimming from the beach nearby. Seeing the people swimming is such a rough sea I wish I could have done that but I guess that is the negative side of not booking a personal trip. Although we missed the best part of Algrave seeing the Benagil beach from inside, it was still one of the most memorable part of our Euro trip and I think it would have done wonders had we got a chance to go inside Benagil cave but that gives a reason to come back to Algrave once again ;).
We asked our Captain to suggest a beach for sunset and without second though he asked us to go to Gale beach and by 6:00 PM we were at Gale. The golden sandy beach of Gale wasn’t overly crowded, with small cliffs and rock formations, there is no high Cliff but a lot of fun and a great place for an easy stroll along the sea. You can see a lot of people taking sunbath, strolling around, swimming in ocean, playing frees-bee, volleyball and what not. As this was the last beach on out itinerary we decided to take a dive in the ocean and then started playing volleyball. As the sun sets we were busy playing volleyball and by 9:00 PM we left for our hostel. One thing you should keep in mind is that its difficult to find a taxi from Gale beach we were lucky that a hotel receptionist helped us to call a taxi otherwise we would have to walk a long way.
After dinner we decided to visit the nearby beach Inatel. The streets of Albuferia come to life at night and the place turns into a party place with a lot of bars and clubs. Its a nice place if you want to go to some clubs and have a drink or two. We headed for the beach to spend some time, with cold gentle breeze and music of waves around us it was like a moment of peace. After spending some time on the beach we headed for our hostel only to say goodbye to beeches of Albuferia with a hope that someday we will come back to this place as one day does not do any justice to the kind of place Algrave is it needs atleast a week to get the best out of it.
The Itinerant Analyst 
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