The seaport of Albufeira is located in the south of Portugal, on the Atlantic Ocean (almost 200 kilometers from Lisbon). The city is set on fairly steep hills - you'll have to walk up some serious hills to get from the beach to the supermarket. To make life as easy as possible for tourists, Albufeira has even invented a special form of transportation - a miniature diesel tugboat that looks like a real steam locomotive.
The city is small - the population of Albufeira is only about 25 thousand people, but in the "high season" this figure can increase almost 10 times!
Like many other resort towns, Albufeira was not so long ago (until 1960) a simple fishing village. Albufeira was founded by the Phoenicians, with fishermen's dwellings appearing in the area around the 1st millennium BC.
Over time Albufeira passed from the Greeks to the Romans (then it was called Baltum), then the Moors came here and renamed the village to Al Buheira - "sea castle" or "sea fortress". Later, in the XIII century, the future resort was liberated from the Moors by the Knights of the Order of St. Jago, and the Moorish name has remained to this day.
In the XIX century Albufeira became a major fishing center of Portugal, and in the 70's of the last century, tourists from all over the world began to come here.
