Faro's beaches and the Ria Formosa, where flamingos can be seen taking to the air, mark the border with the sea.
On the flat terrain behind are the houses and buildings of Faro, green vegetable plots that thrive on the fertile land and water wheels that were once used to draw water from the ground another reminder of the city's Moorish heritage. In the distance a semi-circle of gentle hills, their slopes clad with fruit trees, frames the landscape. Villages where life goes on at the same easy pace as in centuries past, where unassuming churches conceal art works of astonishing beauty, where vestiges of the magnificence of the Romans still litter the fields. These are among the charms of Faro and its municipality, an ideal starting point for exciting voyages of discovery.