In a statement, the Regional Directorate of Culture of the Algarve (DRCAlg) said that the Fortress of Sagres, the Hermitage of Our Lady of Guadalupe, also in the municipality of Vila do Bispo, and the Roman Ruins of Milreu, in Faro, reached a total of 460,048 visits, values that represent "an exponential increase" compared to 2020 and 2021.

The 2022 data also shows that the three DRCAlg monuments managed to reach a "record of entries very close to 2019, the best tourist year in these places", in which a "record of 480,948 entries" was recorded, DRCAlg said in a statement.

"In total, the Fortress of Sagres, the Hermitage of Our Lady of Guadalupe and the Roman Ruins of Milreu received 460.48 visitors, an increase of 87.31%, compared to 2021, which translated into an increase of 214,648 visitors," said the public body.

Compared to other regions of Portugal, the records of entries of the Fortress of Sagres are only surpassed by two monuments that are under the tutelage of the Directorate-General of Cultural Heritage (DGPC) and the Regional Directorate of Culture of the North, respectively the Jerónimos Monastery (870,321 visitors), classified as World Heritage of Humanity, and the Cathedral of Porto (509,702), noted the same source.

The visitors who were at the Fortress of Sagres even surpassed those who were registered at the Belém Tower in Lisbon, which in 2022 was visited by 377,780 people, according to data released by the DGPC.

The same source pointed out that the results of 2022 in the Fortress of Sagres are already "very close to those reached in the pre-pandemic period" of covid-19, which was decreed in March 2020 and that would affect tourist activity and access to monuments in the following two years.

"The Fortress of Sagres received 437,035 visitors, 204,197 more than in the same period of 2021. In percentage terms, a growth of 87.69% was recorded, approaching the number of visitors in 2019. The difference between the number of visitors in 2019 and 2022 is minus 3.78%," it was stated.

The DRCAlg also pointed out that in 2022, the Roman Ruins of Milreu received 19,693 visitors, a figure that almost doubled the number of visitors in 2021 (10,914) and surpasses that recorded in 2019 (19,414), when visited by 259 more people (up 1.33%), he said.

As for the Hermitage of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the recovery of visitors "is being slower", although in 2022 it registered an increase of 81.91% and received 1,702 more visitors than in 2021, DRCAlg said.