Eastern Algarve Adventure
We have a new love - we have no loyality! - Portugal! We enjoyed a week of beautiful sunshine, beaches, hiking, and fresh squeezed orange juice in the Southern Algarve. We laughed at how much it seemed like Califonia - with the orange groves, salty air, and nearby mountains, just we have a hard time shaking our old home.
The beaches were lovely. We only made it to one - but the little steam train across the barrier island to the beach of Barril was just to popular with the little train lover, so we kept going back. The beach was extremely well preserved - the dunes protected, all the tourist facilities concentrated in an old tuna villiage restored for the purpose, no bikes or cars allowed. There was hardly any trash or any people! It was so clean and well managed - a great example of how to use our coasts.
We spent most of our time, however, explore the rural Algarve, from some driving tours we got at the tourist office. This included driving up into the mountains to small villages. The ancient circular homes and communal baking ovens still standing.
We also visited the tile maker - (I'd admit I had 'shopping' in mind - but it turns out they make roof tiles and as we aren't building a house, we passed on filling our luggage) but the machine and process was facintating. They were very kind and invited us in to watch up close.
The castle at Casto Marin was very impressive - a Moorish castle inside a Christian castle - overlooking the salt marsh and part of the long history of area. Elena loved peering through the windows and Jake was rewarded with a view of the surrounding pigeon lofts.
We had a really lovely time (inspite of having my first car accident - a tiny fender bender in a traffic circle, no injuries so don't worry, I rear ended them while we were both stopped - it was a moment of true brilliance! and while I don't recommend having your first car accident in a rental car in a non-English speaking country the police were very helpful and filled out all the forms for me (in Portuguese, of course) and thanks to having the car insurance, the car rental company could only gladly take a modest deductable for presumably 'repairing' the car - but I'm quite sure they have pocketed the cash and rented out again this week!). We saw only a very small part of the country - we never made it west of Faro or into Spain. We could easily fill a few more weeks in different parts of the country.
The beaches were lovely. We only made it to one - but the little steam train across the barrier island to the beach of Barril was just to popular with the little train lover, so we kept going back. The beach was extremely well preserved - the dunes protected, all the tourist facilities concentrated in an old tuna villiage restored for the purpose, no bikes or cars allowed. There was hardly any trash or any people! It was so clean and well managed - a great example of how to use our coasts.
We spent most of our time, however, explore the rural Algarve, from some driving tours we got at the tourist office. This included driving up into the mountains to small villages. The ancient circular homes and communal baking ovens still standing.
We also visited the tile maker - (I'd admit I had 'shopping' in mind - but it turns out they make roof tiles and as we aren't building a house, we passed on filling our luggage) but the machine and process was facintating. They were very kind and invited us in to watch up close.
The castle at Casto Marin was very impressive - a Moorish castle inside a Christian castle - overlooking the salt marsh and part of the long history of area. Elena loved peering through the windows and Jake was rewarded with a view of the surrounding pigeon lofts.
We had a really lovely time (inspite of having my first car accident - a tiny fender bender in a traffic circle, no injuries so don't worry, I rear ended them while we were both stopped - it was a moment of true brilliance! and while I don't recommend having your first car accident in a rental car in a non-English speaking country the police were very helpful and filled out all the forms for me (in Portuguese, of course) and thanks to having the car insurance, the car rental company could only gladly take a modest deductable for presumably 'repairing' the car - but I'm quite sure they have pocketed the cash and rented out again this week!). We saw only a very small part of the country - we never made it west of Faro or into Spain. We could easily fill a few more weeks in different parts of the country.
posted by Erin K. | 11:24 AM
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