Into the Algarve

Another 30C day and off to the Algarve.  On the road for a rest break and a coffee to be ordered in Portuguese - success!!  Then on to Lagos for free time and lunch. Country is undulating with beef cattle, cropping, cork trees, some vineyards and citrus - and even a large irrigated rice growing area. Interesting to learn that the crane is a protected bird in Portugal (saw lots of them and their nests). You are in serious trouble if you take a pre-winter holiday and return home to a nesting crane on your chimney - you just have a cold winter.

Portugal's motorways are great, with not much traffic because the tolls are quite high.

Lagos is one of the south coast's most historic towns and enclosed in 14th century walls. Full of holiday makers and young people and with crowded beaches and high occupancy levels on on-water activities.

Elected another lunch of sangria and ice cream, but fell for the old trick of not going back two or three streets.  In the event, it was very good and full of fruit (all devoured), but badly overpriced. To make it worse, I then walked past a €12 hairdresser (where David Beckham does not get his cut).

Tracked east along the coast to our resort style accommodation, Ria Park Hotel, near Almancil. It is back a few hundred metres from the beach in line with recent law.  Excellent property and straight on to the shuttle to the beach. Time for half an hour in the Atlantic. Water very pleasant (and  quite salty), and long wide sandy beaches with many enjoying the sun, sand & water.  Back on the shuttle to prepare for dinner. Most of the properties in the area have a distinct Moorish flavour, most often white, and occasionally light yellow or pink.

Wonderful restaurant in Almancil, Vaults, for a stunning three course dinner with wine. The building was erected in the 1670's as a coaching house and stable on the route from Spain to Lisbon.  Across it's history it has been used as a butcher shop, pool hall, mosque, wine storage facility, the first cinema in Almancil - and for the past 40 years, as a restaurant in various guises. Made the mistake of wearing a white shirt which my Eton Mess desert did not go with.  Now have a white and red shirt.  There must be a marketing opportunity for cheap disposable shirts for aging men!!