Wednesday 30 March 2011

Cork, Port, and Mateus Rosé!

14th - 20th March 2011

Greetings from Salema on the sunny Algarve! Yes, we’re back in one of our favourite spots in Portugal - right at the bottom on the far left!


Hang on a minute; weren’t you about to board a ferry from Italy to Greece last time? Well, yes we were. But that was nearly 5 months ago now and quite a lot has happened since. We’ve had a month in Greece, a few days camping in the coldest of conditions in Germany, Christmas, another 10 days in France, oh and as many of you will know, David also went for a short walk out of a first floor window with his eyes closed!

We’ve today added a post which covers the first two weeks in Greece. Others will follow to fill in the gaps, but for now we’ll just fill you in on the last couple of weeks.

Our plan for summer 2011 is to travel up through Denmark, Sweden and Norway, back down through Finland, catch the ferry back to Stockholm, and then head for Croatia through Germany and the Czech Republic. We’ll basically keep going until the money runs out and we have to return to something resembling normal life again.

We’re coming back to the UK in April as the first of a new generation of Ellis’s is due to make an appearance then. But we’ll be off on the road again a couple of weeks later.

So with a few weeks to spare we thought we’d head for the sun – hence us now being in the land of cork, port, and Mateus Rosé!


We left Yorkshire on the 14th March and after an excellent evening in Coventry with Phil and Kingsley, headed to Portsmouth to catch the 24-hour ferry to Santander in Spain.


Now, this is a major luxury for us. We’d normally travel via the cheapest route possible, but this would have meant Dover to Calais and a very long drive through France over a number of days. So instead we decided to splash out and travel in style. We even shelled out for a cabin – such extravagance!!

Kennels of different sizes are provided in a room on the top deck, so Charlie was packed off with her bed and food bowls and she seemed to settle quite quickly. We popped back every few hours to make sure she was OK and take her out.


The ferry was great and we were lucky to have calm seas all the way. We’d packed enough picnic food to feed a small army so spent most of the journey eating Pork Pies and drinking coffee from our Thermos. Yes, we know – just how old are we?!

Highlight of the crossing had to be the brother and sister vocal duo (well, one sang, the other played the tambourine!) We passed at least a couple of minutes listening to them murdering a couple of classics. X-factor fans - think ‘Same Difference’ but much, much worse and without the cheesy grins!

Having docked in Santander we made a bee-line for the cheap diesel and, of course, Lidl! Then we were off, spending two days on the drive south until we entered Portugal near Elvas.

We spent the first night in Portugal next to Barragem do Luciano, a reservoir to the south of Elvas. We popped our weather station in the shade under the van and the thermometer read 26 degrees right up until the point that Alex drove over it, having completely forgotten it was there!


The next day we headed to the delightful little town of Estremoz and spent a couple of hours wandering around its huge main square, bustling market and hill-top palace. There’s so much marble in this area that many of the buildings and pavements, and even some of the toilets are made of it!


Next stop; the castle at Évora Monte which sits on a steep hill and provides amazing views over the plains around.




After a quick look at the largest stone circle on the Iberian Peninsula (92 stones placed on a hillside somewhere between six and seven thousand years ago), we moved on to the main attraction in these parts – Évora.


Although only a small town, Évora is packed full of sights, with its Roman temple, Moorish alleys, medieval aqueduct, and sixteenth century palaces. It’s no wonder Charles and Camilla popped in a couple of days later! We enjoyed its laid back atmosphere, and then had an omelette in the car park before hitting the road again.




Having driven for 3 hours through the vast openness of the Alentejo region, where olive and cork trees stretch as far as the eye can see, we arrived at Paderne for our first night back on the Algarve.



View March 14th - April 16th 2011 in a larger map

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