Praia da Luz

We´re leaving our beloved village in two days. The month has gone by so very quickly. We´ve discovered so much more about this area than we understood last year on our first visit. Our favorite discovery is the beach/cliff walks that paralell the sea. The sea has changed greatly on this visit. We´ve had a series of easterly winds and storms. So, we´ve seen our quiet wave action turn into pounding surf. We now know why the rocks are so eroded--and beatiful.

We´ve spent less time visiting sites mentioned in guidebooks and more time at places local people have told us about. We found a fabulous spa up in the mountains near Monchique. We probably would have spent more time using their facilties, but they are very expensive--unless you are a guest of their hotel. Maybe some year we´ll check into the hotel for a few days and just luxuriate in their spa offerings.

We visited a small farmhouse that catches and bands birds that fly through this area on their migrations. We saw them band a couple of the birds before they were released and learned all about those species.

Our Sundays have turned into a routine wherein we go to the Anglican church services in the town´s one Catholic church, then out to Sunday Dinner prepared with all the trimmings in an English-run restaurant. The minister of the church is from the Maritime provinces and studied under a good friend of Don´s.

We´ve spent a lot of time in this Internet Cafe and have become firends with the owners; British, as you would guess.

We´ve watched the road in front of the resort torn up so that they can lay a new sewer pipe. Torn up means the rock cubes that make up the surface of the roads are dug up and replaced after the digging is finished. The project progresses about three feet a day, overall.

We have hundreds of little memories we will take with us as we move on. Monday we´re flying back into Spain for five days. We´ll return to the Algarve for one more week, but at a different location.

Will write again after returning from Spain.

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