What a great time we had with great friends! The weather at
the beginning of the week was not good, in fact the rain stopped us from doing
any sightseeing – a good excuse to chat and read books. However, Wednesday onwards
was good and we got out to see a number of places including Faro old town,
Tavira and Silves. They were all really interesting especially Faro where we
were lucky enough to see a demonstration of the Portuguese Guitar and, our favourite,
Silves castle with its lovely views and storks flying to and from their nests.
Les and I took Peg & John to catch their flight early in
the morning and then we transferred all of our belongings back into Henrietta.
Les and Les are taking a few days to work their way up through Portugal and
into Spain to catch their ferry back home. Meanwhile, we have two and a half
weeks to do the same. We still haven’t made a plan, so we will have to give it
some serious thought over the next few days. It will only be an outline plan
and will, no doubt, be adjusted frequently as we travel.
So it is a huge ‘Thank You’ to Les and Les for inviting us
to share their week and bon voyage for the remainder of their holiday. We look
forward to seeing them when we return to Somerset and hearing all about their
journey.
Last year we spent one night in the aire at Quarteira before
we flew home but did not have the opportunity to view the town. We decided that
it would make a good base for planning and also for finding somewhere to watch
the Rugby World Cup semi-finals. The aire is a very large area used for the
Quarteira each Wednesday but is an aire for the rest of the week. We decided to
stay there again but first drove into the town and parked up.
Quarteira has the feel of a working town as well as a
tourist resort and the port area crammed with fishing boats bears this out. We
had a brief wander around looking for potential places to watch the rugby. The
British bar had a board saying that it was covering the second half only and
the Irish bar looked to be permanently closed. In the absence of any other
likely candidates, I spoke to the very pleasant owner of the British bar who
suggested that we went to Vilamoura, the next resort on. Taking his advice, we
drove on and found a parking place close to an Irish bar. This turned out to be
covering the game so we took a brief walk around before returning before
kick-off time. In contrast to Quarteira, the resort of Vilamoura is purpose
built with many hotels, a golf course and a casino and is very much a tourist
resort. We met a pleasant group of Northern Irish golfers here for a long
weekend and also keen to watch the rugby. A very good match but I can’t talk
about the result as Les wants to watch his recording without knowing who is
going to win!
Back then to the aire in Quarteira.
Photos: A meal at the Vale do Lobo villa; Outside Silves
Castle; Walking the walls of Silves Castle.
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