We chose the town by the winter flight schedule
Three towns in the Algarve were on our list and the thing that separated them was not the houses at all. It was how you get there in February.
From Amsterdam there are direct flights to Faro all summer and almost none between November and March, which means a connection in Lisbon and most of a day each way. That single fact pushed us toward the towns within forty minutes of the airport and quietly moved two places we liked better to the bottom of the list. My wife pointed out that we would be making that trip at least six times a year, and six times a year is what a criterion looks like when it is real.
The listings I go through are on https://global-property.investments/ and I now filter by driving time to Faro before anything else, which is not romantic but it is the thing we will actually live with. Everything else on our list, the terrace, the third bedroom, the distance to the beach, turned out to be negotiable once we admitted that.
Viewings in November, and the plan is to fly the exact route we would fly in winter, connection included, to see how it really feels.