Blogs from Portugal, Europe - page 161

I´ve just eaten a delicious Cataplana here on the outskirts of Lisbon. So I can´t go to bed until my stomach has processed the nourishment. So I found a free Internet connection to play with. And so to blog. Once again we´ve been spoiled with brilliant sunshine and warm weather. Only 10 weeks to go to Christmas and it still feels like the middle of summer. It´s going to be hard to acclimatize back home. We found the sea fairly cool at first but it seems to have warmed up as the weather became more settled. Yesterday was the first day that I could have swam in the sea all afternoon without chilling. We had problems with the Management Services team. I had to add up lots of sums of money just to find out if ... read more

Day 4 Lisbon With our friends we had arranged a private 4 hour mini bus tour with Inside Lisbon Tours. Our tour guide Hugo picked us up from the quayside, as we only had a small van we were able to see the best of Lisbon and get to the places the bigger coaches could not reach. Hugo told us of the history of Portugal, and the significance of each site, painting not only a picture of Lisbon but giving us a great insight to Portugal’s colourful history. We were able to adjust the tour to suit as the day went along, Hugo was flexible and intuitive enough to fit the tour to suit our group, from visiting the best lookout over the city to sampling chestnuts and cherry liquor in the old town. At the ... read more

From Lisbon we're drawn South, lured by talk of desolate golden sand beaches, uncrowded surf and warmer temperatures. The more well-known Algarve area is on Portugal's Mediterranean coast, but we're heading for the Atlantic southwest coast. We follow the sea route through the Alentejo, with its attractive tidy brightly painted villages, nice beaches and headlands. Its finally time for our first swim - refreshingly cool with a wee shore break to play in. Its a novelty to have a backdrop of an island with roman ruins and a 16th century fort. Overlooking the town of Aljezur we find the remains of a 10th century Arab fortress, a great spot to listen to the cowbells and watch the sunset. Ever wondered where cork comes from? We discover the source by accident, stopping for a snack in the ... read more

This past weekend I took an excursion to Lagos, Portugal with 8 others from my CIEE program group. We traveled by bus since Google Maps approximated the travel time as 2 hours 34 minutes by car. In reality it took about 6 hours each way so that was pretty surprising. Luckily everyone was fine with sleeping for most of the ride after having gotten up around 6am that morning to catch the bus. When we arrived in Lagos it was raining pretty steadily so we had to figure out where our hostel was in the rain which took some work. After we got settled in the hostel, the rain stopped for a bit in the afternoon so we took the opportunity to run down to the beach and get thrown around by some pretty large waves. ... read more

We arrived in Santander to overcast skies. It looked a recently prosperous place with lots of new apartment buildings. (It should be prosperous with all the money we've all invested in the local Bank!) Pampas grass grew prolifically on the sides of the road as we sped out of town, staight into the Cantabrian mountains. Then something very unbritish occurred. As we sped through the tunnels and over the mountain passes, the cloud gradually dissolved before our eyes and the landscape quickly turned dun-coloured and then arid. We struggled to find our overnight accom in Valladolid because the street markings and the Expedia map were not mutually compatible. We even stopped at the local council office to find our way. Eventually, we found the place and settled down to a sundowner by the swimming pool. (They ... read more