September in Aljezur, the month locals quietly wait for

Ask anyone who actually lives here which month they would pick if they could only have one, and most of them will say September. Not August, which is loud and full and honestly hard to enjoy. Not October, which is beautiful but already tips into wet afternoons. September is the month Aljezur exhales.

The water is at its warmest of the year, around 20 to 21 degrees on the west coast in a good week, which for the Atlantic here is generous. The wind has dropped compared to July and August. The days are still long enough for a proper afternoon at the beach and dinner outside afterwards. And by the second week, the summer traffic has thinned enough that you can find parking at the beaches again without circling twice.

What the town feels like

The main change is on the streets. In August the main street is a slow-moving current of tourists holding ice cream. From mid-September onwards, the pace eases noticeably. The bakeries stop selling out before mid-morning. The small shops go back to a steady rhythm.

The Saturday farmers market is back to normal size. In August it doubles because half the stalls come to catch tourists; from mid-September it is the regular vendors again, the local egg farmer, the honey seller, the fish stand where the price actually drops after 11 a.m. because everything needs to move.

Restaurants get their rhythm back. In August every table is booked and the kitchens run flat out; from mid-September you can walk in almost anywhere without a reservation. The staff have time to talk again. The daily specials are back on the chalkboards. Eating out stops feeling like a queue and starts feeling like an evening.

The beaches you can suddenly have

Monte Clérigo in the second half of September is almost embarrassing. You walk down the ramp at 11 a.m. on a Tuesday and there are maybe twenty people spread across a kilometre of sand. The lifeguard is still there until the 15th. The beach restaurant is still open. But the summer machinery, the surf-camp buses, the queues for the outdoor showers, is gone.

Amoreira changes too. The river mouth in September is where you actually want to swim: warmer than the sea, sheltered from the north wind, and you can walk across at low tide to the empty north side without competing for a spot.

Arrifana is the last to empty out because the surfers hang on into October. But even here the difference is noticeable by the 20th: the north end of the beach is quiet again, the parking above the cliff has spaces after 10 a.m., and the sunset on the wooden bench above the harbour is something you can have to yourself on a weekday.

The sweet potato season starts

This is the month the Aljezur sweet potato, batata doce de Aljezur, IGP-protected, starts coming out of the fields. The harvest runs through October and into November, but September is the beginning. You'll find them at the market and at small local shops. Six or seven euros gets you a bag that lasts a week.

The town's sweet potato festival, Festival da Batata Doce, traditionally happens end of November, but the crop that gets celebrated then is planted in memory and pulled out of the ground now. If you're here in September and see a farmer on their knees in a red-earth field somewhere on the road out of town, that's what you're looking at.

Weather, honestly

September in Aljezur means highs of 24 to 27 degrees, nights around 16 to 18, sea temperature at its year-peak. The Nortada, the summer north wind that batters the coast in July and August, starts to break by mid-month. You'll get occasional afternoons where the wind picks up hard, but they're the exception now, not the rule.

Rain is still rare. The first proper Atlantic front usually rolls in around the 25th to the end of the month, and it announces itself for days beforehand, you can see it coming on the horizon from the cliffs at Arrifana. Before that, expect blue sky, some morning mist that burns off by 10, and light that photographers call the good stuff. The angle of the sun in September is what makes everything look like a postcard without a filter.

What to do that you couldn't in August

Walk the Fisherman's Trail (Rota Vicentina) without dying of heat. The stretch from Arrifana to Monte Clérigo is 8 kilometres of cliff path, and in August the sun is brutal from 10 a.m. onwards. In September you can start at 9, be finished by noon, and enjoy every step.

Eat lunch outside without booking. Almost every restaurant that runs a terrace has walk-in tables again from the 10th. Look for the small kitchens a bit off the main street, the ones with three specials on a chalkboard and no English menu. Those are the good ones.

Drive the small roads inland. The route from town up into the hills and across to the neighbouring Serra is a full afternoon of mountain, cork forest, and empty road. In August you fight with rental cars going the other way. In September you might see three cars in an hour.

If you can only come once, come now

People who visit Aljezur for the first time in July or August often leave a bit puzzled, pretty coast, but why the fuss. People who come in September usually come back. It's the month that shows you what this place actually is when it isn't performing for tourists: a small farming town with a good bakery, four excellent beaches, a river, and a rhythm that finally slows down.

That's what the locals wait for. That's why we live here.

Where to stay

If you want a place that already feels like the September Aljezur we've just described, quiet, local, well kept, our sister project Bespoke Aljezur looks after a small collection of homes in the area. You can see what's available for your dates here: aljezur-life.holidayfuture.com.