Next stop - Portugal

We arrived in Portugal early Monday morning, the clocks change to English time once we crossed the river border, jumping back an hour.  First quick stop was Castro Marin just over the border, a town with a castle in it, and a camping aire, we had a quick look around and moved onto Villa Reale De Santa Antonia.  A frontier town along the Rio Guadiana, that was re-built in the 17^th Century after a tsunami.  It is a vibrant town, with plenty of shops and bars to keep us occupied considering the weather has been a little unsettled for the last few days.  We stayed at an aire situated on the old docklands area of the town.  First impressions; Portugal has a lovely traditional feel to it and has embraced the motor caravanning fraternity.



The Square at Villa Reale



Moving on we passed through Monte Gordo, then onto Manta Rota, a pretty little town on the coast with an aire, in summer a busy tourist resort, in winter very quiet – story goes that a couple of years ago the mayor ordered that all the motorhomes should be banned from the town, and then the local shopkeepers and restaurants’ were up in arms as they had lost their winter trade, and they covered up all the warning signs with plastic bags, the mayor rescinded his decision and set up an aire by the beach with all the facilities, and now it is full with many vans over the winter for only 4 euros a night and everyone is happy!!  After a couple of days we moved on to Santa Luzia on the outskirts of Tavira, a really pleasant village, on the estuary with cobbled streets and tiled walled houses, and a fresh fish market on the harbour, all the shops are hidden within the traditional narrow back streets of town.  Santa Luzia is "Capital do Polvo" in English "Octupus Capital, which is there local speciality, we sampled the local octupus at restuarant on the front.  We stayed here a couple of days, cycling to Tavira for a day.

Octupus Restaurant at Santa Luzia

Just a comment from Si “the driver” the Portuguese along with the Spaniards seemed to have taken their driven test with the “stevie wonder school of motoring”.

Olhoa Market

From Santa Luzia we travelled down the coast, to look at a stop in Olhoa, we found the camping stop, at the side of the Port, we decided to have a look at the town and discovered that there was a busy Saturday market on by the Estuary, we parked up and went to stock up on supplies. It was a busy and vibrant market with plenty of fruit and veg stalls, along with numerous ladies selling the shellfish and snails.  Si practiced his Portuguese on the old lady stall holders, they are more forgiving with our poor language skills we found a small café & ordered coffee and Portuguese tart to celebrate a sunny day, there hasn’t been so many since we came over the border at the beginning of April.

 

"I better check the change"!!

Coffee and Cake time

Gale Beach

We didn’t stay in Olhoa, but found a lovely aire near Gale beach, just passed Albuferia, and camped there for the Easter weekend.  The owners of the aire were very friendly and offered us an Easter cake, which had a hardboiled egg (still in its shell) inside it, nice gesture, but we ended up giving it to the birds.  During our stay we visited the beach several times and even ventured into the ocean, the first time since or trip began – it was freezing.

Gale Beach

Tradional wash House at Paderne

Leaving Gale Beach and saying our goodbyes to both old and new friends we had met, we drove a little inland to Paderne, a small village with a natural spring ‘font’ and a traditional washhouse – where the locals still come to wash their smalls, and we managed to capture this on camera, although she was a little shy!!



Si washing his "bigs" at the Padern wash-house



Over the next week, we followed the coastal road along the Algarve, stopping at Portimao, Praia de Rocha, Alvor, visiting one of the many Barragems at Bravour and continuing to  Lagos, Boca de Rio, Praia de Luz and finally arriving at the Sagres the most south westerly point of Europe. Over the past week the weather had been very changeable, sometimes grey, raining, then sunny, but always a strong wind, this is normal for this time of year.  Sagres is a surfing resort, but it was even too windy for the surfers. 



Beautiful Beach at Praia de Rocha



Praia de Luz

Barragem at Bravour

The Fort at Sagres - "it blow me away"

 Silves

After reaching the farthest point in the Algarve, we decided to do an about turn and travel inland for the remaining of our time in Portugal.  We arrived at Silves, a beautiful fortress town with an ancient Moorish castle dominating the skyline. Silves was known as the Kingdom of the Algarve, The area around Silves is the largest producer of Oranges in all of Portugal, most of the town was rebuilt after the great earthquake of 1755. Silves has a very relaxed and welcoming feel to it.  We camped in the car park next to the sports complex, by the river, after exploring the town; we went for a swim in the pool. 



Lovely Square in Silves



A square in the old town of Silves

     We have noticed that there are a lot of Storks nesting in Silves, on some very strange places and everywhere you look they have taken up residence even on the dead palm tree stumps. We have found out that the White Stork at one time was on the endangered list, but the numbers are back up, after electricity companies have made their pylons more Stork friendly, and they have decided to stay in Portugal for the winter instead of migrating to Africa.

Stork making its nest on an dead palm tree by the river

Stork by the local supermarket

Stork in the centre of the old town

 Before leaving Portugal, we wanted to try some of the traditional food and walked around town looking for a popular spot to eat one lunchtime. We came across a restaurant on the main road thru town opposite the old roman bridge called Churrasquiera, we had a very substantial meal of Peri peri chicken & chips, salad, bread, olives, cheese’s  and a pudding of orange segments with cinnamon and almonds along with a litre of white wine all for 19 euros (£17) for us  both. As you are eating, if you look up you can see the housemartins nesting above your head.



Si's favourite eatingestablishment (the dogs got no chance of scraps with Si around)



The next day we  went exploring on the bikes and came upon a campsite, a short distance from town, in a peaceful location, amongst the orange groves and along the salt water river that flows from Portimao to Silves, for only 5 euros including electric and showers, and an added bonus, there was a bar with free wifi, just down the road - a little three star gem.

Jo catching up on the blog, by the river at camping Silves

Alcoutim (day 177)

Leaving Silves we decided to make the longish journey to Castro Marim, this is the first town we stopped at on our arrival into Portugal.  Stopping here for lunch of Gazpacho & bread,  and then driving on up to an aire overlooking the town at Alcoutim, on the Rio Guadiana. We strolled down to the river and viewed the town on the Spanish side of Sanlucar de Guadiana. There is a little boat that goes across twice a day and we can hear the church bells chiming on the Spanish times being an hour later than Portugal. 

Sanlucar de Guadiana in Spain

 We passed through Mertola, on our way to Mino De Sao Dimingos, the aire was in a lovely position, laid out on a peninsular, by the side of the Barragam de Tapada Grande.   A really traditional Portuguese town close by, with what we have since found out could be apparently the oldest mine in the world dating back more than 4000 years.  Hot showers in the town square were great possibly a throwback from the mining days, but you did have to bring your own shower head or put your finger over the end to spray the water over yourself. One of our best places to stay so far (4 stars)

The town of Mertola

Our camp spot in Mino

Looking back onto the aire

Monsaraz (day 181)

We stopped overnight at Monsaraz, a fairy tale walled village with a delightful medieval atmosphere. It was originally fortified by the Knights Templar.  Looking out from the Castle you have amazing views of the surrounding landscapes. Looking into the castle grounds from the tower you can see the old bull ring.



A view of the lakes from Monsaraz



Castle at Monsaraz

Castelo De Vide (day 182)

We set off for Castelo de Vide along the planned road, it’s worth a note about the roads in Portugal at this point. The roads along the coast of the Algarve are just wide enough, but are in poor condition and the roads heading north along the river Guadiana are perfect for your little two seater sports car, but rubbish for a campervan with a passing articulated waggon you have to step off the black stuff and onto, no not the pavement they don’t exist just Roman style block paving, could even be from the Roman times sometimes they feel like a cobbled street with a lick of tarmac over the top, it becomes very expensive if you clip your mirror. I think the Portuguese roads could do with an extra inch either side….”.couldn’t we all”.  We stayed here a couple of days, parking behind the sports centre, it is a pretty town, with a well preserved old town, we watched the celebrations for day on the town square.

  



Old Town



Town Square

Barragem Povo (day 183)

We travelled to a Barragem (dam to a reservoir) we were told was a great place to camp, the weather wasn’t very good and it was I bit sodden but would be a great place to stay with better weather, so we travelled on deciding to make it a big journey today ending up in Caceres in Spain a total of 150km passing thru Nisa, Castelo de Vide, Marvao and then onto Caceres.  We had a wonderful time in Portugal despite the weather, as the Portuguese say "April is a month of a thousand tears"