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Published: June 10th 2012
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We spent a couple of days in the seaside town of Lagos which is in the Algarve region of Portugal- one of the most popular tourist destinations in Europe, which receives 7 million tourists each year. The Algarve covers the whole southern coast of Portugal and is made up of many towns and beautiful beaches with amazing rock formations jutting out in the water. As we were there during the Queen Jubilee 4-day weekend (for the UK) there was lots of extra British tourists so was quite fun to people watch during dinner and look around at all the sun burnt bodies. We also checked out the Cape St Vincent lighthouse which is the most western point of mainland Europe. We were happy to cross the boarder back into Spain so we could say goodbye to the crazy Portuguese road tolls- especially as we were getting charged as class 2 vehicle and had paid almost 50 euros for a 100km stretch of highway earlier in the week.
Our first stop in Spain was Seville- an extremely hot city in the Andalucia region. We checked out the Cathedral which is the biggest (square meters, not height) in the world and definitely
one of the most beautiful I have seen. Seville is the arguable the capital of flamenco dancing so we set out to find a performance that would do this energetic dance style justice. After a quick search of the back streets we secured seats in a small and intermit venue which fitted about 40 people. With the venue showing a different performance each night from local professional artists, our show consisted of two dancers, a singer and a guitarist who left you wishing you could play an instrument with such talent and intensity. The flamenco is a very passionate dance and was brilliantly portrayed by the performers and singer in their expressions. The dancers had great footwork with strong arm and upper body movements.
Next we headed back towards the coast but stopped at El Chorro gorge on the way. The gorge is situated among numerous lakes and mountains and in a very very hot area. The Caminito del Ray walk was built during the construction of the hydro power station down stream and is now a popular destination for climbers as for most part of the walk it is simply tacked onto the side of a huge rock
face. With Michael stating ‘how hard can it be?’ as we arrived at the carpark, I was already dreading the walk. As it turned out the more difficult part of the flimsy wooden walkway was inaccessible, to Michaels disappoint, however was still a nice view.
We stayed the night just outside of the coastal city of Malaga. The beaches were lovely and wide, and it obviously gets very hot in the peak of summer based on the number of deck chairs and umbrellas stretched out along the sand. Half the fun of sitting on a European beach is watching the types of people who come to relax and tan, with the highlight so far being the young family of four who positioned themselves adjacent to us with mum and dad wearing matching his and her canary yellow g-strings!
Granada was our next stop which unfortunately meant going back inland again. Granada has spent eight centuries as a Muslim capital and Islam influence can still be seen today in some of the architecture and shops. Unbeknown to us it was a public holiday (Corpus Christi) which meant the bus was a lot less regular from our campsite- after waiting
over an hour we finally made it into town only to be dropped of in a non touristy area with no map. Since it was a holiday everything was shut, so we wandered around for bit until we managed to find the main tourist street. We walked up the hill to La Alhambra which is a huge palace/fortress with amazing gardens and great views of the city. The Alhambra was built in the 11th century for Granada's Muslim rulers and is full of archways with Arabic etched onto the walls. Walking around the markets at Granada, one could be mistaken for thinking they were in Northern Africa as they were all selling Moroccan tea seats, silver and leather.
Granada is one of the last places in Spain to serve tapas the way they were designed to be…free with every drink. We started our bar hop in the center of town and spent the night getting more and more lost in the back streets. It was exciting not knowing what food we were going to get with our Sangrias- with some tapas definitely being better than others. For about 20 euro ($30AUD) we managed to drink 4 goblets of Sangria
each and eat enough food to be satisfied. As we wandered back towards the direction of what we thought was the main square at 11.30pm we were surprised to see a amateur flamenco show had just started- obviously because of the public holiday. It must have been a dance school as there was a huge age difference between the dancers- with the 5 year olds having their moment to shine at midnight…only in Spain!
We are currently in El Campello just outside of Alicante- back on the coast again. Another big stretch of beach with lots of high rises behind the main esplanade. The wharf located at the end of the beach was holding an auction of that days catch from the small collection of fishing boats in the harbour. The wide variety of fresh (still alive in one case) fish, prawns and squid were divided onto small platters and sold to the highest bidder just in time for that nights dinner. Unfortunately my Spanish is not quite at the stage were I could keep up the auctioneer, so I am unsure what they were paying for a dozen wrist size prawns and a few bottom feeders.
We
are now going to follow the coast up to Valencia and onto Barcelona before heading back into France.
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Nanna
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Journey
Once again your photos are delightful to see and tell us quite a lot,. a wonderful journey you are having. Have fun. Gargs and nanna