Blogs from Algarve, Portugal, Europe - page 25

Hi y’all!! First I want to let Uncle Rick and Aunt Lyn know that my package was waiting safely for me in my room when I got home from Lagos! What a nice surprise to have! I opened it this morning and that trail mix is right on time because I just finished the trail mix that the girls sent me this weekend! So thank you very much!! I will try to save some of the other goodies for close to Halloween time…although one I will have to take a picture with on October 30th in honor of a certain couple’s anniversary. You two know what I am referring to, but everyone else will just have to wait and see! So, thank you very much for your package! I loved it!! Now, Lagos. What a nice ... read more

There have been so many moments on this trip when I feel like someone should come along and pinch me. I have to pause and take it all in because it almost seems surreal, like I am in a dream... Am I really sitting at a little table in the south of Spain drinking blanco sangria listening to this perfect musician playing the accordion? Or watching the flamenco dancers so passionately and aggressively expressing themselves through their dance in a tiny show theatre on some random side street? Could it be possible that I am in one of the 3 biggest cathedrals in the world? And are my eyes failing me? Or is that pair of Italian leather shoes really only 15 euro? I love this place And then there are the moments when someone needs ... read more

The delay in posting another blog has been because we didn't buy a sim card for your phone in Portugal. This usually gives us a certain amount of data that we use on internet. Portugal has really turned it on. The Portuguese are very friendly people and no one cares where you park for the night. Our days have passed along many white sandy beaches with crystal clear water. Dan has been having a few kites along various lagoons and surf beaches. Makes us very regretfull that we couldn't buy paddleboards as that would be stella...not that they would fit in the van. Started in Porto where on our first night there was a festival 400m along the street with traditional portuguese dancing, churros and fireworks, really nice suprise. We have since made our way down ... read more

The TV promised rain today for our journey south to Albufeira in the Algarve, and kept it! Swathes of rain, sometimes almost torrential, accompanied our navigation of the non-toll route. The open plains we drove across made the huge black clouds look very threatening and at one point we looked for a place to stop and wait for the downpour to ease a bit. At the entrance to a cemetery we sat off the road while the water poured downhill around us and minor flooding on the road deepened. Before this the weather had cleared for long enough to allow us to stop for lunch and a wander around Evora, an old fortified town with Roman temple ruins at the top of the hill. The postcards we bought here show how the town looks in the ... read more

We arrived to Lagos Portugal from Lisbon Portugal by bus on the 5th of April. We used the directions that hostel bookers gave us to find the hostel and somehow managed to get lost. In our defense, we were a bit tired and definitely in shock of how beautiful everything was. Thankfully the size of the town is very small so after we made a loop we figured out where we were and found our guest house. The guest house is located almost directly city center and is right off of a main street. Literally there is no sidewalk so if you step out of the front door without looking you could get squashed by locals driving fast along the one lane streets. We walked in to the guest house through a tiny door that was ... read more