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Tavira Island ( pt, Ilha de Tavira) lies south of the town of
The island was home to a thriving tuna industry using the old Phoenician technique called
Access to the island is by ferry or
Tavira
Tavira () is a Portuguese town and municipality, capital of the ''Costa do Acantilado'', situated in the east of the Algarve on the south coast of Portugal. It is east of Faro and west of Huelva across the river Guadiana into Spain. The Gilã ...
, Portugal
Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of ...
, just a few hundred metres off the coast. It is 11 kilometres long and varies between 150 m to 1 km in width. The island has 11 km of the best beach
A beach is a landform alongside a body of water which consists of loose particles. The particles composing a beach are typically made from rock, such as sand, gravel, shingle, pebbles, etc., or biological sources, such as mollusc sh ...
es in the Algarve
The Algarve (, , ; from ) is the southernmost NUTS II region of continental Portugal. It has an area of with 467,495 permanent inhabitants and incorporates 16 municipalities ( ''concelhos'' or ''municípios'' in Portuguese).
The region has it ...
, including areas where naturism can be legally practised. It is part of the Natural reserve of Ria Formosa
The Ria Formosa lagoon, located in the Algarve, in southern Portugal, is a system of barrier islands that connects to the sea through six inlets. Five of these inlets are natural and have mobility characteristics. The sixth is an artificial inle ...
. It is also popular among tourists, people that like to swim and bird watchers.
History
The island was home to a thriving tuna industry using the old Phoenician technique called Almadrava
Almadraba (from Andalusi Arabic ''almaḍraba,'' meaning 'the place to strike, also derived into pt, Almadrava) is an elaborate and ancient technique for trapping and catching Atlantic bluefin tuna (''Thunnus thynnus'') originally used by the Pho ...
, between 1841 and 1967, on Barril beach, where approximately 80 families lived. During the 1960s the tuna numbers declined, the migration patterns of tuna changed and fishing for tuna was abandoned, as well as the canning factories in the area. Sometime after 1966 the anchors used in the Almadrava technique were lined up on the island as a monument to the old tuna fishing industry. A train was used to transport the large tuna to the mainland from the island which has been converted to transport tourists. The old fisherman's houses are now used as shops and restaurants.
Access
Access to the island is by ferry or water taxi
A water taxi or a water bus is a watercraft used to provide public or private transport, usually, but not always, in an urban environment. Service may be scheduled with multiple stops, operating in a similar manner to a bus, or o ...
from Quatro Águas, southeast of Tavira
Tavira () is a Portuguese town and municipality, capital of the ''Costa do Acantilado'', situated in the east of the Algarve on the south coast of Portugal. It is east of Faro and west of Huelva across the river Guadiana into Spain. The Gilã ...
, and also by a small floating bridge in the Santa Luzia / Pedras d'El Rei area, followed by a small train trip (operating during the summer months) or on foot, via a footpath parallel to the railway line (c. 2 km).
References
{{commons, Ilha de Tavira Islands of the Algarve Islands of Portugal Beaches of the Algarve Barrier islands