July is the nortada at full strength. It arrives around midday, every day, side-onshore from the Algarve to Porto, and it does not let go until the end of September. Add the smallest swell of the year and the first fortnight of the European holidays and you have the month the coast is least itself.
There is a straightforward answer and it is geographical. The Algarve's south coast takes the same northerly as an offshore, and its swell window picks up the wraparound of what the west is getting. If your dates are July, that is where to go. On the west coast, be in the water by eight. The water is at 18°C, the warmest of the year with August and September.
