The western Algarve's last full week of September opens with a meteorological flourish and ends with the growl of rally engines through the Lagos hills. A yellow storm alert clears by Tuesday, in good time for the 13th Guitar Festival of Lagoa to play its final notes on Thursday and for the Rallye Casinos do Algarve to install its service park in Lagoa ahead of two days of competitive stages that reach the Lagos area on Friday evening. A new plant species found hiding in the Monchique hills has turned out to be entirely new to science, a concert combining fado and jazz opens at the Centro Cultural de Lagos on Friday night, and the penultimate evening of the Ha Fado na Lota series follows at Portimao's Antiga Lota the next night. The week is not, in short, short of reasons to leave the villa.

This week in the west

Yellow alert: thunderstorms and gusts forecast across the Algarve on Monday

The Portuguese meteorological institute issued a yellow alert for the Algarve running from noon to 9pm on Monday 28 September, with thunderstorms, localised heavy rainfall of up to 20mm per hour, occasional hail and wind gusts of up to 90 kilometres per hour in the worst-affected areas. The warning covers the full Faro district, which takes in all of the western Algarve coastline. Anyone planning afternoon beach sessions or clifftop walks on Monday would be wise to postpone them: the window from midday to early evening is the riskiest part of the day and the conditions warrant a trip to one of the region's covered markets, an indoor lunch or an afternoon in Lagos's museums instead. The storm clears through Monday evening and the rest of the week progressively brightens from Tuesday onwards. This is seasonal weather rather than a concern about the trip overall: the same meteorological shift that brings these autumnal squalls through generally lifts the temperature cap that lingers through August and September, and what follows tends to be some of the clearest and most pleasant days of the year on the western coast.

A holiday photograph leads to the discovery of a new plant species in the Monchique hills

A German tourist photographed an unusual small toadflax flower on the slopes of Cerro do Castelo de Alferce in the Monchique municipality during a hiking trip in March 2023, and posted the image to a nature photography website. Portuguese botanist Joao Farminhao spotted the photo, suspected the plant was undocumented, travelled to the site the following year and found a small surviving population. Confirmation through herbarium review, citizen-science records and DNA analysis followed, and the plant has now been formally named Linaria alfercensis, the Alferce toadflax: a yellow-petalled flower marked with spots and two dark stripes on the lower lip, growing in a narrow range of unusual nepheline syenite soils specific to the Alferce area. Only a few dozen flowering plants are known to exist. The species has been classified as Endangered, facing pressure from eucalyptus plantations, invasive vegetation and fire. The discovery was reported by the Algarve Daily News this week and serves as a reminder of how much the hills behind the coast still hold. Alferce itself is a small granite village about 30 minutes' drive from Monchique town, and the route up through the chestnut and strawberry trees rewards the detour quite apart from any botanical ambitions.

13th Guitar Festival of Lagoa reaches its final days

The International Guitar Festival of Lagoa, which opened its 13th edition on Friday 18 September across a spread of venues throughout the municipality, arrives at its closing concerts this week. The festival has moved classical, world and flamenco guitar through outdoor and indoor settings in the Lagoa countryside over the past fortnight, and has over thirteen years established itself as one of the most reliable fixtures in the autumn cultural calendar of the western Algarve. The final concert takes place on Thursday 1 October at the Carlos do Carmo Auditorium in Lagoa. Tickets for individual concerts are 10 euros; full programme details and any remaining availability are on the Associacao de Guitarra do Algarve website. Lagoa is 12 kilometres east of Lagos on the N125.

What's on this week

Rallye Casinos do Algarve, Lagoa and Lagos, Thursday 1 to Saturday 3 October

The flagship round of the Portuguese Rally Championship returns to the western Algarve this week. The service park opens at the Parque de Feiras e Exposicoes de Lagoa from Thursday 1 October, when administrative and technical checks take place; the paddock is free to visit and the team preparations and competition vehicles are worth seeing in their own right. On Friday 2 October a shakedown runs north of Silves from 8am, the official start is given from Lagoa at 3.20pm and the competitive stages move through the Bensafrim and Lagos areas during the afternoon. At 8pm in Lagos there is a meet-and-greet session where spectators can get close to drivers and cars before the Lagos City Stage begins at 9pm. Saturday 3 October brings double passages through the Messines and Sao Marcos da Serra hills in the Silves municipality, then a concluding City Stage in Portimao at 4.41pm with the prize ceremony following. Both City Stages are free and open to the public. The Friday evening stage in Lagos, winding through streets most people know only on foot, is a particularly good spectacle. Five municipalities host stages in total: Lagoa, Lagos, Portimao, Silves and Ourique.

Fado e Jazz: Uma So Alma, Centro Cultural de Lagos, Friday 2 October

The Centro Cultural de Lagos presents Fado e Jazz: Uma So Alma (Fado and Jazz: One Soul) on Friday 2 October at 7pm, a concert programme that brings together two musical forms with more in common than first appears: both built around individual expression, a close relationship with longing, and the kind of live performance that does not improve when recorded. The timing places this concert at the start of an exceptionally full Friday evening in Lagos: the Rallye Casinos do Algarve Lagos City Stage begins at 9pm. Attending both in sequence gives a Friday night in Lagos a range and energy that would be unusual at any time of year, let alone in the gentle last days of September. The Centro Cultural is in the heart of the Lagos historic quarter.

Ha Fado na Lota: Adriana Marques and Helder Coelho, Antiga Lota, Portimao, Saturday 3 October

The penultimate concert in the Ha Fado na Lota series takes place at the Antiga Lota on the Arade riverfront in Portimao on Saturday 3 October at 9pm, with Adriana Marques and Helder Coelho on the programme. All concerts in the series are free. This is the second to last of eight Saturday evenings at the restored fish market on the river; the final concert, with Luana Velasques and Cecilio Santos, follows on Saturday 10 October. For anyone who has been meaning to make the trip to Portimao for the fado and has not yet done so, Saturday 3 October is the last opportunity before the series ends. A companion exhibition on fado and its UNESCO inscription runs alongside at the Antiga Lota through to mid-October. Portimao is 24 kilometres east of Lagos along the EN125.

ARTURb 2026 urban art exhibition opens at LAC, Lagos, Saturday 3 October

The 15th edition of ARTURb, Artists United in Residency, opens its exhibition to the public on Saturday 3 October at the LAC Laboratorio de Actividades Criativas in Lagos. The project brings together international and emerging national artists for a period of residency in Lagos, during which they create an exhibition for the LAC building and paint murals at points around the old town streets. The residency has been in progress since 18 September; the public exhibition opening on Saturday marks the point at which the results become visible to anyone passing through. Guided tours of the street art interventions will run alongside the exhibition, and a catalogue is published as part of the programme. ARTURb is one of the more durable and publicly accessible art projects in the region: the murals it generates remain on the walls of the town long after the festival ends. Entry to the exhibition at LAC is free.

Coming up

Lagoa Magic Fest'26, Lagoa municipality, Thursday 8 to Saturday 10 October

The 6th Lagoa Magic Fest runs across the Lagoa municipality from Thursday 8 to Saturday 10 October, billing itself as the only international illusionism festival in the Algarve. Seven magicians from Portugal, Spain and Cuba perform across multiple venues in the municipality over the three days, under the artistic direction of Lagos-born magician Paulo Cabrita. The programme closes with a Grande Noite de Gala at the Auditori Carlos do Carmo on Saturday 10 October at 9pm. Tickets for shows are 10 euros, with reductions for Cultural Passport holders, and are available through CTT, Fnac, Worten and the Carlos do Carmo Auditorium box office.

Autumn Mediterranean Garden Fair, FATACIL showground, Lagoa, Saturday 17 and Sunday 18 October

The Mediterranean Gardening Association Portugal returns to the FATACIL showground in Lagoa on Saturday 17 and Sunday 18 October for the Autumn Mediterranean Garden Fair, 10am to 5pm both days, with free admission throughout. More than 60 exhibitors attend, including over 20 plant growers offering Mediterranean varieties, native seeds, fruit trees, succulents and aromatic plants suited to conditions in the western Algarve. Free talks and demonstrations on gardening topics run across both days. For visitors at the tail end of the season who have spent a fortnight appreciating someone else's garden and wondering what they might manage at home, this is a practical and agreeable way to spend a morning in the Lagoa countryside. FATACIL is well signposted from the EN125 and has ample free parking on site.

Concierge corner

This week, buy the fish yourself

I spend a lot of these columns sending you to restaurants, and I stand by every one of them. But October is nearly here, the pace is dropping, and this is the week to try the thing the restaurants would rather you didn't: buy the fish yourself and cook it at the villa.

The place is the municipal market in Lagos, the big building on the waterfront avenue as you come into town. Fish hall on the ground floor, fruit and vegetables upstairs, mornings only, closed Sundays. Skip Monday as well: the boats stay in on Sundays, so the week opens without a fresh catch. From Tuesday, go before ten. By half past ten the locals have taken the best of it and the stallholders start looking at their watches.

Do not worry about your Portuguese. Pointing is a perfectly respectable language in a fish market, and the women behind the counters have sold fish to every nationality on earth. Look for clear eyes and skin that shines like it's still wet from the sea, and when you've chosen, make a scissors gesture and they'll scale and gut it for you there and then. What comes home is ready for the grill, no surgery required.

As for what to buy, the honest answer is whatever came in that morning, and the counter will tell you if you ask. The sardine season that carried the whole summer is on its last few weeks, so if you see them fat and gleaming, that's your lunch decided. Otherwise this is the season when dourada and robalo are at their best, and if you want to feel like you know what you're doing, ask for salmonete and watch the approval register.

Then cook it the way the whole coast cooks it: coarse salt, a hot grill, and the discipline to add absolutely nothing else. Boiled potatoes, a tomato salad, something cold in a glass. Every villa I know has a grill standing there all summer being used for burgers, and this is its actual purpose.

Two practical notes. Take some cash, because not every stall loves a card. And if the beach sits between the market and your kitchen, take a cool bag, because a dourada does not improve on a sun lounger.

Here's the part I probably shouldn't put in writing: the fish you grilled yourself, eaten outside with salty fingers and the afternoon in no hurry, will beat the restaurant version. Not because you're a better cook. Because of everything else on the table.

Don't tell the restaurants I said that.

Mark

The week's weather

Monday brings the first proper autumnal weather event of the season: a yellow alert for thunderstorms, heavy localised rain and gusts of up to 90 kilometres per hour is in force from noon until 9pm. It is worth taking seriously but it will not linger. Tuesday calms down to partly cloudy conditions around 24 degrees, and Wednesday is similar: mild, overcast and perfectly manageable. From Thursday the picture brightens considerably, with largely clear skies and temperatures in the mid-twenties through the end of the week, which is well-timed for the rally stages and the concerts in Lagos on Friday and Saturday. Sunday closes the week with thicker cloud moving in again, though no significant rain is expected.

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