Albufeira, Portugal

After a lovely Christmas in London with John’s parents (Ken and Lindsay), grandma (Pat), uncle (Trev) and our Aussie friends Andrew and Jess, John left with his family VERY early on Boxing Day to fly to Portugal. They flew into Faro on the southwest coast of the country and did a short drive into the Algarve to Albufeira and our villas. They were busy the first few days exploring the towns in the area and walking the local beaches. After working those few days, I gratefully joined everyone on the 29th.

It was beautifully sunny every day of our trip. The sun high in the sky beating down on us felt so good after a few dark months in London. It wasn’t beach weather but we usually stripped down to t-shirts by mid afternoon with highs of 16 or 17. It really cooled off at nights though.

John picked me up at Faro airport and took me straight to the old Moorish capital of Silves where we met his family for lunch. Silves had a Moorish fortress and a busy food market. As we have said before, we love traveling in the winter. One of the perks is that the locals venture out and you can see more of what life is like when a place when it isn’t overrun with tourists. Locals were getting their food from the market and wandering through the streets at Silves. They all had their winter coats on, while we foolish tourists were in t-shirts. We all enjoyed a huge lunch in Silves of local fish and Portuguese chicken.

We were staying in villas in a golf resort. Our apartment had balcony facing the south sun, overlooking a pool and palm and cork trees. We spent our mornings there drinking coffee and reading. We felt quite at home in our villas, making and eating dinners, and playing Cribbage and Pentago. We also got our first Bridge lesson.

The small part of Portugal that we saw was similar to neighbouring southern Spain; the inland was less rugged and picturesque but the coast made up for it. The beaches and cliffs were stunning. On my second day there John, Ken, Pat and I went to the southwesterly tip of the country. We ate lunch on the sunny patio of a restaurant overlooking a beautiful beach and cliffs (big highlight of the trip). We drove along the cliffs, past the surfer vans and the big fortress. We stopped at one the lighthouses and admired the sheer drop to the water below. The cliffs and surge of the ocean took my breath away, not to mention the fishermen perched precariously on the edges, tied to the rocks and casting down to the water.

On the last day of 2007 (Happy Birthday Sarah!), John and I drove inland to the cute town of Alte. We walked to a waterfall that John’s family had discovered earlier, explored the town and then enjoyed a coffee on a terrace overlooking Alte’s valley. We tried a local delicacy, which looked like a tasty Beaver Tail style pastry. It disappointingly turned out to be a sweet potato concoction. We should have gone for the Portuguese tart. Later in the afternoon we hit some balls at the driving range at our resort. Much to John’s chagrin, they wouldn’t let us on the course because we didn’t have golf shoes.

We started the New Year’s celebration with drinks and appies at Pat’s villa and then we walked to our restaurant for dinner. Chef Chico and his family did not disappoint; the meal was excellent and great value. We finished the low key evening back at the villa where we tried out the fire place. We were told it might work – it didn’t and we smoked ourselves out (but noted that no fire/smoke alarms went off. Safety first in Portugal). Trev and his girlfriend where the only young ones at heart; they headed into Albufeira along with thousands of others for what we heard was an excellent fire works show. We watched the top of it from where we were and watched some of the spectacular London ones on TV.

We were happy to have a fairly mellow evening as we left for London early on the 1st. It was a nice, slower paced, relaxing trip to end off the year, and it was wonderful to share it with the family. Thank you to John’s colleague Octavio for providing us with lots of tips on his home region. Scroll down for Christmas in London blog. Photos at http://www.flickr.com/photos/weatherills/sets/