Vila do Bispo is the seat of local government in the southern part of the West Coast, but a much more interesting village with greater activity is SAGRES, 10 km to the south-west. Sagres' greatest claim to fame is that Henry the Navigator is said to have had a so-called "school of nagivation" here.

It is not known where this school was located or what form it took. All that can be said with reasonable certainty is that between 1420 and 1460 Prince Henry gathered about him in the vicinity of Sagres the best international brains available in the various fields of science concerned with seamanship. It is tempting to think of Henry's "school" as more of a medieval research centre, a sort of forerunner of NASA headquarters, and it is reasonable to speculate that it may have been within the mighty ramparts of the fortress on the main headland at Sagres.

The most interesting of the few old buildings left in the fortress is the starkly simple little church. The largest and most recently constructed building, an exhibition centre, is a monument to bad taste as well as historical and environmental insensitivity.

As you admire the rugged seascape while driving, or better still walking, around the headland path within the fortress walls, you will probably see men with long rods casting into the turbulent waters a long way down. You may marvel at their head for heights. If they seem in danger of falling from their cliff-ledge perches, indeed they are and occasionally they do.

Next to the unmanned lighthouse on the point of the Sagres headland you will find a good example of a blowhole, a natural, vertical vent which rises from the roof of a cavern in the base of the cliff right up to the clifftop. When the sea is rough you hear the waves pounding into the cavern, whoomming air upwards and then sucking it back down again.

The most overrated feature of the fortress is the so-called rosa dos ventos or wind compass. It is a circle of rock with radiating stones. Some people will have you believe Henry used it to make navigational calculations. In fact, its origins are in doubt, but it is not thought to be that old.

Although Sagres is a must for all visitors to the Algarve because of its cliff scenery and its historical connections, the village itself is a bit of a shambles. Set back from the headland, on the high ground, there is hotch-potch of houses and apartments and a road which winds down to the quayside of a sheltered fishing harbour.

The best bedroom views are to be had from the Pousada do Infante, one of a chain of quality hotels throughout Portugal run by a state-owned company. There are various other types of accommodation; a motel and holiday apartments down to cheap, private rooms-to-rent and a campsite.

The closest thing to a village centre is the little square, Praça da República, where backpackers of many nationalities meet and swap notes over beer outside the Cafés.