Day 14 Alportel

Today we decided that we should see as much of the Algarve coastline as possible, so we left fairly early and drove west to Armacao de Pera on highway 125, with the intention of driving back east to Faro and staying as close to the water as possible. The roads do not follow as near the water as you would like, but if you drive down little roads there are some beautiful beaches. What we also found out was that this part of the Algarve coast consists mostly of resort towns and golf courses. The resorts seemed to be entirely inhabited by Germans, French, and Brits. Most everything was written in English. We stopped and walked around several of the towns and it was strange not hearing any Portuguese being spoken. Vila Moura in particular was an enormous harbor completely surrounded by condos, shops, and restaurants. We walked the harbor and had lunch at a British pub called O’Neil’s. A pint of Stout with fish and chips just sounded like a good idea. After all, with all the great fish around here, it just had to be good. It was terrible. From Vila Moura we made our way along the coast until we got to the old twelfth century town of Faro. A walk around the old walled city bought us back to what Portugal really is…a charming old world country, with a very real character of its own. After having espresso, a pastry, and chestnuts, we eventually made it back to our hotel to make plans for tomorrow. We think we’re going west along the coast to Lagos and spend two days there and poke around the extreme southwest portion of Portugal.