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Our only night in the Algarve was punctuated with the sound of heavy rain showers. There has been some heavy rain moving across Spain to the northeast for a few days but fortunately it hasn’t affected our plans. From pictures on the TV there have been flash floods in towns, garages needing pumping out and motorway web-cam showing a truck jack-knifing and sliding only to be hit by a following car. Without understanding Portuguese we think a bus crash was caused by the weather.
We had one last quiet drive through Albufeira before heading for Seville. The area is certainly built for the influx of northern European tourists with every second hotel having the word Club in its name. We noticed some residents at our hotel sunning themselves by the pool at 9:00am between possible showers.
Because there was not much to see between Faro and Seville we took the A22 motorway for a quick trip. We noted that the Portuguese were setting up their part of this motorway with the dreaded electronic toll system. So future travellers be warned. We crossed a fabulous bridge into Spain. A great cheer went up by everyone on board. We had escaped from the
clutches of the electronic toll road police and can continue with our holiday and blogs, around 130 to go! “Oh no!!!!” we hear everyone cry out, “not more blogs”. Probably a letter with a Portuguese stamp will be waiting for us when we get home demanding we pay up or else. Who knows, perhaps they will extradite us to face a court hearing all for about 2 euros in unpaid toll charges.
Driving through the countryside you can often see for miles. The scrubby countryside is interspersed with olive groves and citrus orchards. The soil is brick red and gives the appearance of driving through inland Australia. Nearly every second power pole has a stork’s nest on it. Some poles have several, the most we saw were four nests on the pole with adults looking after their chicks. We were not sure how this affected the power supply but would certainly act as an electric blanket in the cold weather.
Our hotel for the next two nights is an apartment with separate living room and bedroom and a small kitchen – with a fridge! What joy to have cold milk on our cereal and even a cold beer tucked away. There is a supermarket next door so a good chance to do some self-catering and spread the euros a bit further. Arriving early we had a chance to catch up with washing and booking onward accommodation. Just as well we stayed put as a late afternoon thunderstorm passed through. From the forecast the worst of the weather has gone and we can look forward to at least 9 good days with temperatures in the mid to high 20’s. It is just the place to be in May, pleasantly warm but not too hot.
Tomorrow we visit the city of Seville, the home of flamenco dancing.
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