Faro layers 2,000 years into walking distance: Roman mosaics at Milreu, a Moorish arch buried inside an 1812 gate, a cathedral raised on a mosque in 1251, and 1,245 monks' skulls cemented into a chapel wall. Three days of stone, bone and archives.
Roman villa of the 1st-3rd century AD with a rare surviving water-temple, fish mosaics in the bath complex and an olive press. Open Tue-Sun 10:00-13:00 and 14:00-18:00 in summer, closed Monday. Entry €2, free on the first Sunday of the month.
Cavallini's 1812 neoclassical arch hides the original 11th-century Moorish horseshoe gateway in its passage, the only one left in the Algarve. A stork nest usually caps the belfry. Free to walk through; the tourist office inside stocks the old-town map.
Faro's archaeology museum sits in a 1543 Renaissance convent cloister and holds the 3rd-century Ocean Mosaic dug up near the railway station, Roman statuary from Ossonoba and Islamic-period ceramics. Open Tue-Fri 10:00-19:00 in summer.
The 'Arch of Rest' is where legend says Afonso III paused after taking Faro from the Moors in 1249. The double-chambered gate and the adjoining stretch of Almohad-era wall along Largo de São Francisco are the best-preserved defensive fabric in town.
The walled quarter empties after the day-trippers leave, revealing the castle enclosure's original street plan and the Roman-era grid beneath it. Evening light on the whitewashed 17th-century episcopal palace facade shows the earthquake repairs clearly.
Built 1816 from the bones of 1,245 Carmelite monks exhumed from the churchyard, skulls and femurs cemented in tiers around a tiny chapel. Reached through the 1719 baroque church. Open Mon-Fri 09:00-13:00 and 15:00-17:30, Saturday mornings only.
The harbour where the Earl of Essex's English fleet landed in 1596, burned the bishop's palace and carried off Bishop Osório's library — books that became the founding collection of Oxford's Bodleian. The customs house and salt warehouses line the quay.
Ethnographic museum on Praça da Liberdade documenting Algarve life before tourism: tuna-trap models from the Armação de Pêra fisheries, cork and esparto workshops, and photographs of the 1930s salt pans. Open weekdays 10:00-13:30, 14:30-18:00.
An Italianate 1874 theatre converted from a 16th-century Jesuit college, its horseshoe auditorium modelled on Milan's La Scala in miniature. The garden outside was reclaimed marshland, laid out after the 1755 earthquake reshaped Faro's shoreline.
An excavated Islamic-period house and 11th-century wall section preserved under the Loulé council building, with Almohad ceramics found in situ. The most complete Moorish domestic archaeology in the district. Open Tue-Sat, entry around €2.
The 1926 iron-and-glass market hall, rebuilt in 2009 around its original frame, still runs on the fish auction rhythm the city was founded on. Rua de Santo António outside is Faro's first paved commercial street, calçada-cobbled in the 1880s.
A fishing island settled by families from Olhão in the 19th century, with no cars and a lighthouse of 1851 that guided the Ria Formosa channels. Ferry from Porta Nova quay takes 45 min; return ticket about €4.50 with the municipal line.
Cubist flat-roofed 'açoteia' houses built by returning tuna fishermen in North African style, the reason Olhão is called the Algarve's Moorish town. In 1808 local fishermen sailed a small boat to Brazil to tell the exiled king the French had gone.