Sudoku, Strays, Cliffs, and Clocks!

20th March - 2nd April 2011

When we arrived on the Algarve we headed straight to one of our favourite wild camping spots from last year at Boca do Rio near Salema.

A favourite with motorhomers: Boca do Rio

It doesn't get much better than this!

The far western corner of the Algarve is a conservation area and development is prohibited. It means that this stretch of coast is pretty unspoilt; the rugged coastline dotted with high cliffs, cove beaches, golden sands and a few small fishing villages.  

Salema

Fishing boats at Salema

The Portuguese Land's End: Cape Saint Vincent

There are quite a few motorhomes in this part of the world, mostly from Germany, the Netherlands, and the UK. A lot of retired couples spend the winter down here, staying for several months to escape the worst of the UK weather....and who can blame them!!

No motorhome parking allowed in Fuseta!

There aren’t many facilities down here apart from at campsites and it can be quite frustrating waiting at the only free water tap for miles around while some hippy/crusty/surfer types do all their washing and then spend another half hour giving themselves a good scrub down! Being English we of course said nothing and waited our turn in line.... for an hour!!!

We spent a couple of days camped at Ingrina beach which is hugely popular with surfers. It was here that we nearly adopted a stray dog who seemed to attach herself to us – nothing to do with the barbeque which we left outside the van overnight and which looked remarkably clean the following morning! 

The dog seemed to be sleeping under the van. She followed us on an hour-long walk along the cliffs to the neighbouring beach at Zavial and hung around while we had our lunch. Charlie also seemed quite fond of her, which is quite rare for our moody old pooch! We even started to think through the practicalities of getting her home but in the end we had to be sensible and leave her there. It was heartbreaking when we left though as she chased the van down the road for nearly half a mile.

Charlie with a new friend

Zavial beach

Whilst staying on the Algarve we’d planned to do nothing apart from eating, drinking and sleeping. We managed this pretty well but managed to fit quite a bit of sudoku into our busy schedules too! Oh and reading the Portuguese English-language newspaper. Good grief - they could do with a few plain English lessons! Their sentences are so long you could die of either boredom or asphyxiation just reading the front page! 

Alvor is a charming little town to spend a bit of time in. Not as built up as some of its neighbouring towns and resorts, it still has a lively harbour and main street where fresh fish is cooked outside on grills in front of the restaurants. It also has a beautiful stretch of beach with huge rocks and cliffs at the far end.

Charlie near Alvor

We got chatting to an English couple in Alvor who were a little confused about which time zone they were in. This, mixed with the fact that the clocks had just changed, had lead to quite a bit of confusion in their van - something we could sympathise with having had the same problem last year!

One of our favourite spots on the Algarve remains Ferragudo, primarily for the popular wild camping spot which has a great view of the town and across the estuary to Portimao and Praia da Rocha.

Ferragudo

A highlight of this trip so far was the fantastic cliff-top walk at Benagil. Sink holes, caves and tiny bays that are unreachable by foot litter this stretch of coast. The landscape has been created over thousands of years as the porous limestone has been eroded by the sea, rainwater, rivers and streams.

Cliff top near Benagil

You do have to watch your step and there were a few time that Charlie got a little too close to the edge for comfort in her desperate attempts to get down to the sea for a swim. The most dramatic recent rock fall here was in 1998 when an arch collapsed to form a new stack.

As you head east the coastline completely changes and you come to the huge sand spit islands that are connected to the coast in places by narrow causeways and shuttle ferries. The one at Tavira is one of the largest and we followed the miniature railway line across the mud flats from Pedras del Rei to the huge stretch of golden sand which was pretty much deserted.

The crossing at Pedras del Rei

Railway out to the beach on Ihla de Tavira

An amazing beach on Ilha de Tavira

A collection of anchors on Ilha de Tavira

As our favourite ice-cream stall in Tavira was closed, we moved on to a nearby beach for the night where we met up with the same confused English couple and again helped them out when they realised they had no wine to cook their fish in! We got some good tips from them about our journey north so it was a fair swap! 

Tavira

For our last day in Portugal we headed inland following the course of the Guadilara river which forms the southern border between Spain and Portugal, to Alcoutim. 

The river Guadilara en route to Alcoutim

A lovely little town, Alcoutim faces a pretty much identical town across the river in Spain. They even have matching forts!

Alcoutim

The Algarve News we saw in Alcoutim featured an article about Charles and Camilla’s visit to Portugal. We like to think they will have sampled one of the countries traditional pastries – the Belem tart – and mocked up what this may have looked like! Further evidence that we really have had too much time on our hands!!

So for the second time in as many years we crossed the Guadilara river and entered Spain heading for Seville. This being our second trip along the Algarve, we were surprised at just how much we've loved it. If we were a few years older and able to do so, I think we'd spend our winters down here too!

View March 20th - April 2nd 2011 in a larger map

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.



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Adeus Portugal and hola España!

View April 17th - 26th 2010 in a larger map

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

Storms, ticks and haircuts!

View April 7th - 16th 2010 in a larger map

Having spent a few days soaking up the sun at some of the beautiful cove beaches on the western Algarve (the beach at Figueira being our absolute favourite), we started to move east.

We’ve seen some of the main package tour destinations on the Algarve this week, including Lagos, Praia da Rocha and Albufeira. There are some gorgeous beaches here, backed by huge red cliffs or lined with beach front cafes. But the amount of development is overwhelming, with villas, hotels and apartments crowded into every available space for miles.



There are some very pretty villages that have managed to escape development and keep their Portuguese feel, where narrow cobbled streets are lined with little houses covered in colourful tiles. On the coast highlights were the little towns of Alvor and Ferragudo, while inland the villages of Silves and Alte were particularly nice.




Away from the coast the land is surprisingly beautiful, with green undulating hills and the smell of orange blossom filling the air. We went for a walk along the river Arade near Silves, where two very persistent hounds followed us for about a mile – disappearing every now and again only to reappear and bark at us from a different angle!



You have to feel very sorry for those who’ve come for a short holiday on the Algarve this week as the weather has been awful. We’ve had several stormy days with rumbling thunder and lightning. We’ve been told that Portugal has actually had its worst winter since the 1890s. Everyone seems a little unsure what to do when it’s raining and only the bravest Brit would attempt a swim in the sea. We visited a large shopping centre near Albufeira one day as a way of killing a few hours and found it filled with tourists milling about looking rather miserable!

Earlier in the week, Alex got his haircut in Lagos by a blind Portuguese barber who couldn’t speak a word of English - interesting choice! This lead us to realise that a bit more protection from the sun was needed, so a number of interesting hats have now been purchased – none of which would be worn at home.



We celebrated Alex’s 25th birthday (ahem!) on the 10th April... by washing the dog in a baby change sink at the campsite!! We’re only staying at campsites every 4 or 5 days, so we had a good day making the most of the Wi-Fi connection and swimming pool before enjoying a good Portuguese meal in the evening on the seafront at Luz.



Charlie still seems to be enjoying herself and is doing a lot of swimming and digging. Unfortunately, we found that she’d brought some stowaways onboard this week – ticks! At this time of year they’re everywhere, waiting to jump onto any passing traffic. Luckily we came prepared and were able to treat her straight away. The next job is to give her a haircut - something we’ve never done ourselves. It could be the second interesting hairdo in as many weeks!