Several hills break out from the horizontal plateaux between river Sado and the sea, with pine and cok oak trees around them. In the southwest of this southern region another ridge extends itself over the western side of Portugal: Serra da Mesquita, Serra de Monchique and Serra de Espinhaço de Cão. There are a lot of rivers that flow down the Caldeirão moutains such as rivers Mira, Arade, Algibre, Asseca, Odeleite, Foupana, Vaseão and Oeiras.
It often rains in the high green peaks of the Monchique mountains although quite seldom in the rest of the region. The climate tends to become mediterranean as we go south. Not only because of the weather but also because of the Phenicians, Greeks, Romans and Arabs that used to bring their influence to the region.
Over river Sado, Alc√°cer do Sal is surrounded with cultivated land, rice fields (very common in this area) and oak groves. Porto Covo is almost the only fishing port one can find in the west side of Alentejo and Algarve since its south side is so rich in this activity. Odemira lies on a great schist-structured valley that goes from the Sado down to cabo Sagres which is the farmost point of the southwest, and then turns east towards river Guadiana, all the way to the east side of Portugal. Very few people live on the higher altitudes of these ridges and if they do, they're quite scattered. Only Serra de Monchique, as mentioned before, has enough water to manage life. In the heart of the mountain, the village Monchique gives us wonderful fruit and big forests. Trees in the Algarve are of a different type: we can find almond-trees (very common), fig trees and carob-trees, which altogether give a different view than that of northern parts of the country.
The south of the Algarve is very turistic; with its long beaches, that are full in the Summer, this region still shows most of its fishing structures. Here we can find houses with white walls, as in Alentejo, because the white colour reflects the sun rays and turns houses cooler in Summer. Chimneys are also very traditional and are elaborate.
In almost every beach, you can see fishing boats aligned with the tide waves. The water gets warmer in the hot Summer days and especially when there is "Levante". We use this term when the wind blows from east, from the Mediterranean sea. Albufeira is a very popular fishing village as well as Olh√£o that is also and industrial zone.
Note: As you can see, a lot of places and names start with Al- like Algarve, Alcoutim, Aljezur, Alferce, Alte and many others. It is not by chance; it is an influence of the Arabs when they lived here before the 12th century. Al is the arab article for "the". Therefore anything starting with Al really means "the something" like Alqueire which is an old Portuguese measure for capacity; we can heavily translate it to "the quantity".
