Blogs from Algarve, Portugal, Europe - page 35

We drove to Lagos from Tavira. There is not much to see along the highway and the main thing to be said is that there isn't much traffic -- I never saw so much as a hint of a traffic jam in this part of the world, despite being here in the middle of the tourist season -- maybe the price of gas is keeping people off the roads. Lagos itself was quite crowded, with good reason, very beautiful location. We went for a walk along the cliff and visited the fort -- obligatory it would seem in every Portuguese town. (luckily I like forts, palaces, castles, etc.) The wind sculptures were nice. The coast has lots of big rock formations and you can walk all along the coast by walking through gaps in the rocks ... read more

The main town in the Algarve is Faro. We spent a day walking round the old town and came back another day for a boat ride on the lagoon. The lagoon has a lot of migratory birds in the autumn and spring, even flamingoes. ... read more

By Darvin: We arrived in Lisbon late Sunday night and caught a cab directly to our residencio (budget hotel) located near the downtown center of Lisbon. Right away I noticed that compared to Barcelona and Madrid the buildings in Lisbon were much more run down, the streets had more garbage on them, were smellier and there was more graffiti. The history of Portugal is again one of very rough times until only recently but the old historic area of Lisbon did not wear it very well. The metro was very easy to use however, and once we got out and did some exploring the character of this capital of Portugal began to show. We took a 3 hour walking tour on our second day there and our guide was awesome. She showed us many really interesting ... read more

Portugal has been great - very relaxing. We decided not to go to Lisbon but instead spend our time in the Algarve, an area on the southern coast. It is quite beautiful. English is much more common here than in Spain. We found most places we did not have any difficulty with the language. We stayed in the city of Faro. This is where the airport is that we fly out of tonight. Thursday was a nice relaxing day. We spent the afternoon at the beach which is about 6km away, easily accessible by bus. The beach was great, however, I felt the water was about 15 degrees colder than I would have liked. Sherrie thought it was great, not cold at all. Yesterday (Friday) was very exciting. We headed by train to the town of ... read more

It is to hot over here! We have left Portugal now and in Spain and yesterday it was hitting 43deg in Saville where we are now so very hot. Well Portugal was pretty much the same heat but no way as bad so was heaps easier for sightseeing. We covered pretty much North to South in the week we had there starting in Porto up the North end. I seemed to be a very old city with all narrow streets and we got lost plenty of times wandering around this place. All the citys in Portugal seem to be very hilly but it made for some great views though of the city from the other side of the river exp when the sun was setting having a couple of beers. We preferred this city more the ... read more