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Published: April 17th 2007
Life on the Beach
Salema, our new favorite beach/fishing village.
The Conley Family Portugal: We started with an exhausting late drive to Sevilla, where you'll laugh: we drove into a nice truck stop hotel at 2 am desperate to find a bed and the five us shared 3 single beds… we can laugh now and it makes for a good story, but we wanted to drive as far as we could… the kids had their interview at school, we made our final arrangements of bus and uniform, and off to Portugal… a 2 hour drive to the Algarve. Interestingly, there were no customs as we drove in, much different than our 3 hour process of leaving Morocco to Spain!
The Algarve, famous for beautiful beaches and chosen by us for the consistently perfect weather and promise of good tennis. EXCEPT: we hit a rainy cold spell and were limited to tennis and a few hours of the beach. Our first day the boys found a pickup futbol game on the beach with a bunch of Brits. The boys were quick to make assumptions that the kids from London were mean and cheaters, the kids from Manchester are really nice. I quickly reminded them that people may make the same judgments about Americans
Octopus traps
These clay pots are used by the fisherman in Salema. They drop them to the bottom and an octopus crawls in, thinking its a cave it can hunt from, and not realizing how much the Conley boys love to eat calamari. from their behavior and to set a good example! We were able to squeeze in tennis everyday and enjoyed our spacious condo.
After three days in Vale de Lobo, we found our new favorite place on the Algarve called Salema, a little unspoiled fishing village where we extended our stay because of the beautiful weather and relaxing environment. There we found octopus traps (clay pots), saw eel skins drying in the sun, tidal pools where the boys teased crabs and fed sea anemone dead crabs that they quickly closed on. They were mesmerized by the sea, and we by the tranquility, vino verde, fresh seafood, and the constant lapping of the sea that lulled us to sleep. TJ is dreaming to go back!
On to Sintra, maybe my favorite town, and I think it rivals any town in Italy for charm. Our stay was brief, the kids are truthfully tired of travel and not interested in the fairytale historic castles. I understand that they’ve reached their saturation point and want to return to either the beach or Spain where they can practice their Spanish. My fault, I pushed Portugal because it was just a 2 hour drive and
Eel
We were sitting in a cafe when the owner walked out carrying this eel skin and hung it to dry on a line. Tommy now wants eel skin boots! then another 2 hour leg, and then another…. But on to Sintra. We found another modest hotel with a million dollar view, the sunset over vineyards with THREE castles in view, wisteria and flowering trees abound and a huge patio with a garden and birds. We walked the town and then hiked atop the castle of the Moors (9th Century)… there were breathtaking views and I was weak-kneed with worry that one of the kids would literally fall off the edge.
We had a brief stop at Obidios, a walled medieval town that reminded me of the great wall of China. At this point, TJ and I had regrouped and we decided to accelerate our plan and drive quickly back to Spain near Madrid and get the driving over with. A night in Coimbra, we didn’t find the beauty, or Fado (traditional blues), just a bar with a sande (sandwich) and to bed.
That brings me up to date. We’ve had a lot of fun, learned and experienced much, have been lost too often, had tender moments and melt-downs, great luck and then lost and towed cars, but we have kept our humor and still have a sense
kids on the beach
This will give you a sense of the beach at Salema. of adventure. We are blown away at what a trooper Keenan is… she can walk so fast and has such stamina, we have not had to slow down our pace. We’ve also learned to keep snacks and water on hand, and then go in search of a bathroom, and we've learned to avoid any form of tour and go at our own pace.
The kids have done really well and miss their friends, please keep the emails coming!
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