Oi & Ola Amigos - Portugal & Seville

---

Hi friends & family,

Ola from Seville in Spain - we arrived yesterday & weather hasn´t been great but nevertheless have managed to see most of the sights.Seville is your typical Spanish city with beautiful avenues lined with orange trees, terraced houses, beautiful churches etc. Anyway won´t bore you with all the details.We´ve just been on a tour of the bull-fighting ring, one of the most famous in Spain.Very interesting & has prepared us for watching a fight tonight - we´ve bought tickets.Not sure if I´m so keen to witness something so gruesome but Kris is looking forward to it - its such an integral part of Spanish tradition and so popular amongst the locals that we couldn´t get tickets yesterday and were lucky to get for this evening.

Just to recap on the last week - spent two days in Lisbon, once again saw all the sights.The weather was fantastic, blue skies & sunshine which was great especially coming from the snow in the UK.We really enjoyed the people & typical Portuguese culture & food.I loved speaking the lingo again - felt like I was back in Brazil and most of it came back rather quickly.I have been interpreter for Kris for the last week.By speaking the language we were able to get some great tips from the locals as to authentic places to eat & see.Fresh seafood, peri-peri chicken, paella - these were all on top of the list of things we ate.

We then headed down to the Algarve where we started our camping stint - unfortunately we got lost on our way out of Lisbon so missed the camping store & started off with not much camping equipment. We have since bought quite a bit of stuff along the way so now we are all sorted.We also managed to go through a toll without paying so got a 50 euro fine.....not much but hurts when on a tight budget.Also all the camping equipment i.e. lamps, cookers etc from our trip in the States which we lugged over here is not compatible with Europe therefore have had to buy all new stuff.

We really enjoyed the western part of the Algarve i.e. Lagos to Sagres.The scenery consists of high cliffs & beautiful beaches - our favourite being Beliche which you will see in the photos.We spent one day exploring the beaches & both ended up getting very burnt.Was great to be in the sun & sea again after such a long time.
We found the east part of the Algarve to be very built up & not as nice at the West.We struggled to find a campsite in Tavira the one day & ended up at ome random trailer park (little bit dodgy) which believe it or not is managed by a South African lady who allowed us to camp in her front garden for the night.Not your ideal camping spot!

Camping so far has been quite entertaining us being the only tent in the campsite surrounded by huge campervans, motorhomes.It seems that its the trend for retired Europeans to buy a campervan & tour Europe - we´ve been the youngest people by far & feels at times that we are in an retirement village - nevertheless everyone is very friendly & we´ve received some great tips along the way.

Tomorrow we are heading south-east, hopefully to some more sunnier weather & beaches - Granada, Alicante, Tarrangona & then meeting up with friends in Barcelona for a party weekend!!

Hope you are all well - have attached some photos!!

Cheers
Kath & Kris

---

Comments

[Charts]

Varsity Cup
Howzit Guys! Great set up this blog! Thought I would let you know Maties pipped Ikeys in the last minute of the final - heartwrenching stuff. I still maintain UCT lost it due handling errors from those ass-over-kettle passes Boffie tried to introduce to Wanderers back in 2003! Have a great trip! Charts