Sagres, Zavial to Costa de Santo Andre

Two weeks spent between Sagres and Zavial. In and out of the sea, sunbathing out of the wind and some coastal walks.


We made it back to the lovely little restaurant at Ingrina and had the most fantastic prawns and Sea Bream.


With just over three weeks left we decided that we had to head north up to Carrapateria. We have spent seven weeks on the same two pages in our map and it was finally time to change the page! Total mileage so far is 1250.


Tim ran out of Jazzers and so we had to make some by melting the chocolate in the windscreen and then liberally sprinkling it with billions and trillions. This was one giant Jazzer!





Odeceixe



The view from Almograve was stunning coastline in both directions. We spent a few hours looking at the folds in the rocks. Some had been folded under so much pressure that they had over turned back on themselves.






......and at last we saw the sun set over the sea.



A quick campsite for washing and showers at Vila Nova de Milfontes, unfortunately it was a bit far out of the town and so we shall have to return here another time. A short hop up to a new Aire at Porto Covo and then skipped around the refineries and smog at Sines to Praia de Santo Andre. Here we are now....no pictures yet but using the wifi in the bar while we can.

Alvor to Sagres

This will be a little photo heavy as we've not had a campsite for a while and for some reason my ipad mini won't charge from the van. I probably have to buy an Apple charger for around £30! ( edit...I wrote this 2 weeks ago....but no wifi)


These Russian Dolls were from a market in Lagoa, I have a set at home but mine are from around 1978, where as these have a sticker that says 1998. I love how they look and when/if I ever make a sewing room then I will have a shelf especially for them. Though I guess I will never remember what is inside each!
Alvor in the guide book looks like a small old fishing port....it has been modernised, lots of lovely restaurants and still has some character. It was popular port in Roman times and despite suffering extensive damage in the 1755 earthquake it is still a popular holiday town, with a superb beach. We stayed on the Aire here for €4, but the constant wind was blowing dust at us all day, so we continued west.





On to Lagos which had loads of tiled houses with old wrought iron balconies and fortifications left by the Arabs in the 8th century.





This is a statue of Henry the Navigator who turned Lagos into an important naval centre in the early 15th century and financed expeditions down the coast of Africa. It is here that in 1441 the first slave market was held and a plaque indicates the area under the arcades on the far right of the photo.


We finally managed to get a shot of an Azure Winged Magpie. These we have seen many times in large flocks, much brighter to watch than our magpies.


At Boca de Rio we parked as close to the beach as we could and stayed until our food ran out. The sea was quite warm, but still no surfing.


The next beach at Praia de Ingrina was even nicer, though we planned to eat in the restaurant, only to find that it was closed on Tuesdays. If we had a day like this at home this beach would be jam packed. Tim caught 3 mackerel out on the rocks, but they weren't big enough to eat, so he let them go.


On to Sagres, the town furthest west and also the name of the delicious beer that we have been drinking. The far south west tip is Cabo de Sao Vincente where there is a lighthouse, so we peddled over for a look and found yet another beach (Praia do Beliche Beach).....this one had surfing waves and was down out of the wind. It's been very hot....but only if you can hide from the wind!
There are many tiled houses, but this one looked like it was done from a sample pack, very cheerful amongst all the white houses.


This Rosa dos Ventos, wind compass is inside Prince Henry's fortress, though there is some disagreement on what it was actually used for. Lots of wild flowers and birds on the coast path, Choughs too.....though unfortunately we didn't see any.


Our first view of the west coast, looking out over the Atlantic, though Libby was glad she had 4WD to get here.

Alte to Pria de Marinha

Alte is a tiny, unspoiled inland village on the Algarve. It is famous for the Fonte Grande, which is a weir on the River Alte and so we went a lovely long walk, followed by ice cream! Here we saw the first of the traditional wash houses, still used today for scrubbing clothes outside.

Then on to Silves, with the biggest unofficial Aire we have seen so far. There must have been over 60 camper vans staying in a car park by the sports centre, where there is free wifi and showers for €2.50. There are some "long termers" here as there are supermarkets within walking distance, water and a waste disposal point. Silves was also popular with the Romans and then the Moors, when it was renowned as a centre of culture on the Al-Garb (meaning The West). There is still a substantial red sandstone castle that looks down over the pretty town which used to be a port until the river silted up. We saw a couple of pleasure boat trips, full of tourists from the coast. Though it was nice, I wouldn't want to spend a month here as some do.






We treated ourselves to a paid Aire at Parque Da Gale, near Gale Beach €6.50, electric and wifi....a lovely place to stay, but no shower :o(
We cycled into Albufeira for Tim's birthday and had a fantastic meal of Piri Piri chicken and Dorado, Sea Bream. The food here is certainly fresh and delicious, strawberries, oranges, tomatoes are all extremely cheap and very flavoursome. I can imagine these streets and beaches in the height of summer being busy with people on package tours, where as now there are just a few people around, some you can tell are on golf holidays, with matching shirts and socks!


These fresh orange juice machines are all over the place and great for a refreshing drink.....we've now bought an orange squeezer and have it for breakfast.


Gale beach


Then we continued west to a beautiful section of stunning coastline where we were able to walk along, access the deserted beaches, swim and eat in beach cafes. The sea here is a perfect turquoise in the sun, which suddenly seems to have become hot and the wind has warmed up. This is what we came here for and it is all wonderfully relaxing.

Altura to Vilamoura

Before we hit the coast we drove down the side of the Guadiana River, the Portuguese - Spanish boarder and looked at all the allotments that had flooded, loads of destruction all the way to the coast at Villa Real de St Antonio. The small village of Alamo was set back from the river and their sign had been beautifully "Yarn Bombed".....lovely crochet, wouldn't it be nice if every village signpost was like this?
We stayed a while in Altura, enjoying being by a beach and the sea at last. Fantastic long, golden sand dunes, however still a little chilly. Amazed to see the locals collecting shellfish in a wire basket and net contraption, while waist deep in water, walking backwards.
A little bit of luxury as we stayed on a campsite at Cabanos, near to Tavira. We cycled through the salt pans, similar to the Isle d'Re, with loads of wading birds, including Black Winged Stilts, with amazingly long legs and we saw our first bee eater, stunning colours but my camera isn't good enough to capture them.
Tavira, which is set on both sides of the river is a very quaint old town with many tiled houses and narrow cobbled streets.






On our travels we have met many lovely people who have recommended places to stay and Pedras d'el Rei was one such place. We loved it here so much that we stayed a week. There is a small train that used to transport tuna fish from the island beach, but it now transports visitors. The tuna have all moved on and the anchors from the boats are arranged in a cemetery, this is all that is left of the fishing fleet here.
Unfortunately the beach had a red flag flying as there were little blue jelly fish around as a result of the fresh water flooding down from the dams. We had a paddle but didn't want to risk a swim even though the weather has just turned out HOT!


We then moved on to Olhao, a town that still has a fishing fleet and two great markets, one for fish and the other fruit and veg with butchers around the perimeter.





We took the local ferry to the island of Culatra, half an hour trip for €3.80 return, very good value! After a lovely lunch we walked along the beach to Farol, which means lighthouse, though the town was deserted as that end of the island is just full of holiday homes.
After catching the ferry back we were in need of a drink and so went to an old traditional bar, the Sete-Estrelas. This is one of only three places in Portugal where you can buy wine from the barrel....so we bought 5 litres and very nice it was too! We were told also that it opens at 5 in the morning for the local fishermen to have a drink before putting to sea....not that we were there at that time! The fishermen used to leave their bicycles here, hung on the wall inside....now they leave their car keys! How times have changed.


This is Libby on a campsite with bunting and lanterns from generous friends.


Then we stayed in Quarteira and cycled into Vilamoura for the day. The marina here is very different to the rest of Portugal we have seen so far. A tourist destination with shops and restaurants beyond our pockets.

Monsaraz to Altura, Algarve

We stayed for Easter Weekend at Montseraz and the sun shone bright and warm for a day. This picturesque fortified village overlooks Europe's biggest reservoir and Spain is just over the other side. Bull fights take place in this ancient arena, but they do kill the bulls.





Driving south we went through mile after mile of olive groves and cork oak trees. It was a wine making monk, Dom Perigon, who in the 17th century revived the use of cork as an odourless, tasteless seal for wine. Portugal produces over over 30 million corks per day. After 20 years the cork trees can produce its first harvest of bark and then be stripped of their bark every 10 years. The numbers painted on their trunks are the years that the tree was last harvested.
Then we passed through Serpa, which is just 22 miles from the Spanish border. This town like many around here has been fought over from the Moors and the Spanish and still there remains this beautiful arched aqueduct.


We stayed a night at a lovely location by a reservoir at Minas S.D. which has a car park, but they don't seem to mind campers staying here. However the town is very poor as it used to be a thriving copper mining town, until the mid 60's. In its heyday it was one of the biggest producers of copper and the company was owned by the British. Though unfortunately the British managers didn't treat their workers very fairly, low wages and poor housing, a story that is sadly repeated at many places around the world. At its height of operation there was a population of 6000 and today that has reduced to around 800.


Then we went to Alcoutim, which is on the Guadiana River across from Sanlucar in Spain. You can usually cross the river for a Euro, but not today.


The river rose over 3 metres in just a few hours and while we were having lunch in The Riverside restaurant we saw several boats going backwards down the river, dragging their anchors, with nobody onboard.
This life sized statue quickly ended up under water. The reason was that it has rained so much that the dams has to be opened to let some of the water out of the reservoirs before they overflowed. Why they didn't do it gradually, I'm not sure. Thankfully we were parked up the hill away from the river for the night.


Then it was off to The Hunting Lodge, a private Aire that had been recommended to us. Here we could get some washing done, recharge everything and also wifi was available. Again we parked on top of a blustery hill and the rain eased off long enough for us to go a walk through some flower meadows in full bloom.


Eventually we arrived at the beach on the Algarve, but had a quick trip over the bridge into Spain to exchange a gas bottle. Altura was our chosen spot on an international car park/waste land taken over by large campers here for around 3 months of the year.
Both very happy to be by the sea again.