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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!
