BENAGIL · APRIL · 37.1° N
The cave does the recruiting. Algar de Benagil, its roof punched open to the sky and a disc of sand lying underneath, has pulled more people onto this stretch of Algarve coast than any tourist board ever managed. April is when the whole thing becomes comfortable: afternoons average 69.3°F, daylight holds past eight in the evening, and the cliff path above the village is a pleasure rather than a test of stamina.
What April does not hand over is a beach holiday. The sea off Benagil averages 63.5°F, rain falls on about five days, and dawn can start at 54.3°F. So the question is not whether Benagil is lovely this month (it is), but whether you would rather have May’s extra warmth on land. March, April and May are set side by side below, degree by degree.
THE MONTH AT A GLANCE · BENAGIL
April gives Benagil 69.3°F afternoons, more than thirteen hours of daylight and a sea at 63.5°F: warm enough to walk the cliffs all day, cool enough that most swims stay short.
AVG HIGH 69.3°F · SEA 63.5°F · 5.3 WET DAYS · SUNSET 20:08
Go for: clifftop walking in 69.3°F afternoons, light until 20:08, and water 2.6 degrees warmer than it was in March.
Think twice before: building the trip on swimming. 63.5°F is an average of daily maxima, and 5.3 days bring measurable rain.
Air: IPMA station 554, Faro, normals 1991-2020 · Sea: Open-Meteo Marine, 2015-2024 · full sources at the end
On this page
- Benagil weather in AprilHighs of 69.3°F, lows of 54.3°F and 5.3 wet days
- Can you swim in Benagil in April?A sea at 63.5°F, and what that means in the water
- Crowds and prices in AprilThe booking order, and the figures we could not verify
- Things to do in Benagil in AprilThe cave, Praia da Marinha and the Carvoeiro cliff path
- A two-day plan for BenagilTwo days built around a 06:55 sunrise and a 20:08 sunset
- Benagil in April vs March and MayHow the three months compare on air, rain and water
- Is April a good time to visit Benagil?Yes for walkers and drivers, no for swimmers
For the village itself, year round, see our Benagil guide, and for the coast around it, the Algarve guide. April’s numbers start below.
Benagil weather in April: average highs, lows and rain days
| Measure | April in Benagil |
|---|---|
| Average high | 69.3°F (20.7°C) |
| Average low | 54.3°F (12.4°C) |
| Precipitation | 1.54 in |
| Days with 0.04 in or more | 5.3 |
| Days with 0.39 in or more | 1.3 |
| Sea surface | 63.5°F (17.5°C) |
| Daylight on April 15 | 13 h 13 min |
Those normals come from IPMA, the Portuguese institute of the sea and the atmosphere: station 554 at Faro, a real thermometer 5.0 meters above sea level, averaged over 1991 to 2020. April runs an average high of 69.3°F, an average low of 54.3°F and 1.54 inches of rain. One caveat travels with every figure here: Faro sits some 37 miles (60 km) east of Benagil, so these readings describe the coastal strip, not the higher ground inland, which is colder and considerably wetter.
Measurable rain falls on 5.3 April days, counted at IPMA’s threshold of 1 mm, which is 0.04 inch. American tables usually count at 0.10 inch, so the two sets of rain days are not interchangeable. In practice, 5.3 days works out at roughly one April day in six catching rain, and most of those are a wet hour inside an otherwise usable day. Carry a light shell, keep the cave trip on a settled morning, and leave one afternoon unbooked.
Fifteen degrees separate the average afternoon from the average night, and you feel all of it on a cliff top at seven in the morning or on a terrace once the sun has gone. Layers solve it: a fleece that lives in the daypack, long pants for dinner, swimsuit underneath in case the afternoon talks you into the water. Our packing guide covers the rest, but for April on this coast add a windproof layer for the boat.
April 15 brings 13 hours 13 minutes of daylight, with the sun up at 06:55 and down at 20:08 local time. That buys a second outing every day. A walk started at five in the afternoon still has three hours of light ahead of it, and dinner happens in the blue hour instead of the dark, which is the single biggest difference between April here and a winter visit.
Can you swim in Benagil in April? Sea temperature and what it feels like
The sea surface off Benagil averages 63.5°F in April, from the Open-Meteo marine series over 2015 to 2024. Read that figure carefully, because it is the mean of daily maxima, the warmest reading of each day, which puts it a shade above a true round-the-clock average. Other tables you meet may quote a lower number for the same month. They are not necessarily wrong. They are measuring across the whole day rather than at its peak.
At 63.5°F the water is a short, bracing, entirely doable proposition rather than an impossible one. Adults last longer than they expect once they are in; children tend to last minutes. Most April visitors settle on one of three approaches: a quick plunge from the sand and straight back to a towel, a kayak or paddleboard out toward the cave that keeps them mostly dry, or a wetsuit, which turns 63.5°F from an event into an afternoon.
Wind and swell are the gap in our file. No station on this stretch measures sea state, and we could not verify a monthly wave record for Benagil, so we quote no wave height. What we can tell you is that sea state, not rain, is what cancels a cave trip. Operators make the call in the morning, and a bright sky over a lumpy sea still means no. Ask the evening before, and keep the cave on your most flexible half-day.
How busy is Benagil in April? Crowds, prices and booking
April sits on the ramp rather than the plateau. European and American school holidays fall in July and August, not in April, which is a calendar fact and the only one we can stand behind. We found no occupancy series and no monthly room-rate record for Benagil, so we crown no month cheapest and none dearest. Our trip-cost guide keeps the running totals for Portugal as a whole.
How far ahead should you book? We could not verify lead times for this coast, so no number of weeks comes from us. Two practical anchors instead. The rental car decides your radius and is the reservation that gets scarce first, so make it early (our car guide covers tolls and the insurance trap). The boat to the cave cannot really be locked in at all, because the sea decides on the morning.
On lodging tax, we have nothing verified. No rate for Benagil could be confirmed, so we give no per-night figure and no percentage. Ask the property when you confirm, and put the answer in the same envelope as parking and fuel. Where to stay in Portugal sorts the bases along this coast if you are still choosing between the village and a town with restaurants.
One upgrade genuinely changes April: the car. With 5.3 wet days in the month and a sea state that can veto boats without warning, mobility is what turns a gray morning into a good one. Lagos lies one way, Carvoeiro and the Marinha clifftops the other, Faro further east. Book the car with the room, not on arrival.
Things to do in Benagil in April: the cave, Praia da Marinha and the Carvoeiro cliff path
April’s gift is the pairing: 13 hours 13 minutes of daylight on the 15th, and afternoons at 69.3°F, which is 3.3 degrees above March and still 5.0 degrees below May. That combination is walking weather, and the coast here is built for walking. You can cover the cliff line between breakfast and lunch in a shirt, then do the same stretch again in the long evening light without repeating a single view.
Begin at Praia de Benagil, the cove the village is named for. Head east on the clifftop track toward Praia da Marinha, the arch-and-stack beach that fronts half the Algarve’s posters; head west and the same path runs toward Carvoeiro. Further along the coast, Ponta da Piedade stacks the same golden limestone into tunnels and pillars. The Algar de Benagil is reached by water only, by kayak, paddleboard or boat, and swimming in is far less casual than it looks in 63.5°F water with boats using the same doorway.
The rock does not change with the calendar. The air does. Between March and May the average high climbs 8.3 degrees, from 66.0°F to 74.3°F, while the sea goes 60.9°F, then 63.5°F, then 63.4°F and effectively stops. April catches the moment when the walking has become comfortable and the swimming is still a decision. Dawn on the cliff can be 54.3°F, so the early start wants a jacket that the afternoon will not.
The best two hours of an April day here cost nothing: the cliff path and the beach carry no ticket. The cave does, one way or another, since it involves somebody’s boat or somebody’s kayak. We could not verify parking charges in the village or April fares to the cave, so we quote neither. Ask your host what the village charges before you drive down.
Benagil in April: a two-day itinerary
Day one runs on the light. Sunrise is 06:55 in mid-April, so a 07:30 start east along the cliffs toward Praia da Marinha gets the good light with the air near its 54.3°F low, jacket on. Be back at Benagil late morning for the water, whenever the operator has a slot the sea allows. Take a long lunch. The 69.3°F afternoon suits the beach or the short drive to Carvoeiro, and a 20:08 sunset leaves room for an unhurried drink before dinner.
Day two goes wider and bends with the forecast. Clear sky: drive west for Ponta da Piedade and Lagos, or east for the Marinha clifftops and a slow beach afternoon. If one of the month’s 5.3 wet days lands on you, the same car takes you inland or into Faro’s old town, and the cave slot slides to the following morning. In a four-night stay, keep one half-day genuinely empty for exactly this.
Benagil in April vs March and May
| Measure | March | April | May |
|---|---|---|---|
| Average high | 66.0°F | 69.3°F | 74.3°F |
| Average low | 51.4°F | 54.3°F | 59.0°F |
| Precipitation | 1.84 in | 1.54 in | 1.03 in |
| Days with 0.04 in or more | 5.6 | 5.3 | 3.8 |
| Sea surface | 60.9°F | 63.5°F | 63.4°F |
Line the three up and April looks like the hinge. March gives 66.0°F by day and 51.4°F at night, with 1.84 inches over 5.6 days and a sea at 60.9°F. April lifts the afternoon to 69.3°F, trims rainfall to 1.54 inches over 5.3 days, and warms the water to 63.5°F. May is the warm one on land, 74.3°F and 59.0°F, with 1.03 inches over 3.8 days. The surprise sits in the bottom row: at 63.4°F, May’s sea is a tenth of a degree cooler than April’s.
Moving from April to May buys 5.0 degrees of afternoon warmth, 1.5 fewer rainy days and half an inch less rain, and it buys no extra swimming at all. Going the other way, March costs 3.3 degrees of air and 2.6 degrees of water while adding about a third of an inch of rain. If warm water is the point of the trip, neither month delivers it, and our month-by-month timing guide takes the rest of the year in order.
Is April a good time to visit Benagil?
Yes for walkers, drivers, photographers and anyone whose perfect day ends with a long dinner outside. Afternoons at 69.3°F, more than thirteen hours of light and a coast path that is a genuine pleasure to be on add up to a strong offer. No if the trip is built on the water: 63.5°F as a daily maximum means short swims, and the cave trip can be called off by a sea state nobody measures from the shore.
If that second paragraph is you, May is the obvious shift, and it is clear about what it gives. You get 74.3°F afternoons, 3.8 rainy days instead of 5.3, and a sea still sitting at 63.4°F. May improves the lunch, the terrace and the odds on the cliff walk. It does not improve the swim, which is worth knowing before you pay more for it.
April’s own argument is narrow and real: the water has already made its 2.6-degree jump from March, while the air is still cool enough to walk the whole cliff line at midday.
The last word
Book the room, book the car, and leave the cave unscheduled until the morning it looks calm. That single habit separates a good April here from a frustrating one, because the sea makes that call and nothing on land can overrule it. Keep the rain in proportion, too. An average April delivers 1.3 days with 0.39 inch or more, so one proper soaking, plus four more where a drizzle interrupts a walk that was going perfectly well.
Sources & data for this guide
- April air normals (high 69.3°F, low 54.3°F, 1.54 in, 5.3 days at 0.04 in or more, 1.3 days at 0.39 in or more) · IPMA, climate normals 1991-2020, station 554 Faro, altitude 5.0 m · checked Sep 23, 2026
- March and May normals (66.0/51.4°F and 74.3/59.0°F) · same IPMA station and same 1991-2020 period · checked Sep 23, 2026
- Sea surface 63.5°F for April, 60.9°F for March, 63.4°F for May, taken as the mean of daily maxima over 2015-2024 · Open-Meteo Marine API · checked Sep 23, 2026
- Daylight of 13 h 13 min, sunrise 05:55 UTC and sunset 19:08 UTC on April 15, converted to local time (UTC+1) · sunrise-sunset.org · checked Sep 23, 2026
- Scope caveat from the source: Faro lies some 37 miles (60 km) east of Benagil, and the normals describe the coastal strip. Higher ground inland is colder and much wetter. No station on this stretch measures sea state.
- Editorial admission: we found no occupancy series, no monthly room-rate record and no lodging-tax rate for Benagil, so no month is ranked on price and no percentage is quoted. Boat and kayak fares to the cave were not verified either · check operators when you book.