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It took a few days and she’s not likely to win Crufts anytime soon, but the dog is now showing off her first home haircut!
We’re already taking bookings!
As we continued our meander along the Algarve, we had an interesting trip to a little chapel near Almancil. The interior of the Igreja de Sao Lourenco is covered in tiled depictions of the life of Portugal’s patron saint, St. Lawrence.
We spent two days looking round Faro, the capital of the Algarve. The city is a really nice surprise and not the tourist mecca you might expect. Defensive walls encircle the small old town, and you can climb the cathedral tower for great views of the city and the mud flats and islands beyond.
The Igreja do Carmo is an interesting church which seems fairly straightforward as you enter. But after paying a euro you go outside to a little chapel decorated with the bones of 1245 monks. The remains were put here after part of the graveyard was built on, and at the time it was considered a way of remembering them. It’s quite eerily impressive.
Faro was also where we, unintentionally, had our most expensive meal. A lot of the restaurants in Portugal sell seafood and fish by the kilo which is fine if you have a clue when it comes to weights and measures! Sadly, we don’t. And when the bill arrived it was quite a surprise to find David had eaten £25 worth of Sea Bream!
Whilst in Faro we decided to go back along the Algarve to do some of the things we’d missed because of the poor weather, the main one being a boat trip along the coast from Lagos to see the caves and rock formations. We did this aboard a colourful sailing boat and were transferred into a little motorboat for the exciting part - darting in and out of the caves.
From Lagos we headed to two of our favourite places visited so far, Ferragudo and Tavira, via the impressive Roman ruins at Milreu.
Ferragudo is a lovely traditional fishing village that’s unspoilt by development. It sits just across the estuary from Praia da Rocha, one of the most developed tourist resorts. We found an excellent place to camp that gave us amazing views of both.
While staying in the beautiful town of Tavira we were lucky enough to catch the end of the Feria de Serra, a festival which saw the town’s riverside gardens filled with stalls selling a wide range of local produce.
The coast in this area is fronted by a series of sandspit islands. Little boats and water-taxis ferry people to and fro so we spent a lovely day on the Ilha de Tavira, with its huge sweep of golden sands.
We spent a fantastic final night in Portugal at the Barragem de Beliche, one of the reservoirs away from the coast. We’re unable to use the shower in our van and, as we were in the middle of nowhere with no one around, we stuck the hose out of the window and had an outdoor shower. It was only later that we spotted the small security camera on a nearby fence! Someone got an eyeful, but we’ve not been arrested yet!
On our last day in Portugal we popped into the border town of Castro Marim where David got into an altercation with a rather rude Frenchman, whilst wearing Marrigolds!
From there, it was ‘adeus’ Portugal and ‘hola’ España!
For a brief look at our top ten of the Algarve, click on the map below.
View Our Algarve Top Ten in a larger map
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