The whole of the seafront in Armação de Pêra (central Algarve) is being re-done throughout 2009.

When the work is finally finished (which looks to be sometime early next year at the moment) the front will have a fabulous new pedestrian area creating better access for the beach, restaurants and all the shops. The problem is that to get all this work done, it has left Armação de Pêra in a real mess, particularly for the main Summer season and as they have decided to do all the work at once access is incredibly difficult and it is a real eye sore. Families with small children in buggies and disabled or elderly people will all face significant challenges to manoeuvre the building work to get to the beach or to the restaurants and shops. Some of the work can be avoided by taking a route around the work, a few streets back from the front, but crossing to the beach can't really be avoided unless approached from the western end of the promenade.

When we visited, we spent a considerable amount of time wandering around to see the extent of the building work and yes, in all honesty, it is quite severe and as we are acustomed to here in Portugal, not much thought has been given to creating proper access points for pedestrians...it is very much a case of 'find your own way' around the works. On the flip side, we stopped at a cafe-bar towards the western end of the promenade and with the sun beating down and some lovely music to listen too, we actually forgot about the work for a while. The staff at the cafe-bar were in a great mood and offered a very good service, which is probably something that will be mirrored by other businesses who are just so thankful to have the custom. Also, when we stopped to admire the beach we noticed lovely new yellow and blue sunshades and mats on the loungers and of course the beautiful beach itself has not been affected.

More photographs of the building work in Armacao de Pera

Also, for your information, the original tourist information office that was mid-way along the promenade is obviously closed at the moment so a temporary tourist office has been set up at the old fort with Chapel at the eastern end by the fishermen's beach

Update on the road works in Armação de Pêra

I've just accessed your 'Algarve Uncovered' site for the first time, just to see what comments there may be about Armacao de Pera - our favourite holiday destination for many years and its recent drastic changes along its sea front.

What first 'hit me' was those ghastly photos which are now so, so out of date! Please, please get rid of them right now! The work is almost completed and you'll frighten visitors away!

We first found AdeP back in 1985 and have been revisiting at least twice a year, around March/April & September/October time, ever since. Both we and friends who have accompanied us, just love this quiet corner of Europe (out of 'season' of course). The people are so friendly. The beach must be one of Europe's best and as AdeP is still an active fishing village, the working boats are an additional interest for visitors.
In many ways, we have been saddened by the mutitude of high-rise apartment blocks that have been increasing over the years, but as they have mainly been built on the approach roads, once you reached its heart, AdeP's own individual charm and character was still evident.
To beat the snow in the UK, we did pop over to the warmth of AdeP for a week, only to find the sea-front completely wrecked and virtually impassable except on foot, as were many of its side-roads. In March, things were somewhat better but in October vast areas of paved pedestrian precincts had then appeared. So is this the chosen image of their local authority? Most of its individual charm and Character has been destroyed - it now just another Quarteira or Albufeira! Please, please do not destroy what little is left, ie the lovely little shops and restaurants, the quaint indoor fish, fruit & vegetable market, which is open during weekdays and around which local growers have their stalls on Saturday mornings.
My grasp of Portuguese is still limited but as many locals wandered around in the evenings and passed the time of day with me, I'd only need to point to these 'improvements', indicate 'thumbs up or down' signs, to receive only 100% 'thumbs down' responses.

We love Armação de Pera as well! It has a fabulous beach and as you say, is still an active fishing town - the colours of the fishing boats on the sand just "shout" Algarve! It's lovely that you are passionate about this great resort to complain about the photos, but we aim to keep people informed about the Algarve "warts and all". It was a shock to you to arrive and find the sea front in such a mess but you will hopefully come back time and time again because you know the character of the town - imagine how you would feel if this was the first time you had visited the Algarve. We want people to come to this small, but beautiful, region of Portugal and we hope that by being informative people will trust in our information. We have added a link on this article to our news update when we visited AdeP in July specifically to check how things were going and I hope you will agree that work had progressed speedily! We hope that there are lots more people like you that love our adopted country so please spread the word!