Whole lot of Nothing Going On

Sunday 22 – Monday 30 April – Praia de Felicia

We had a short and uneventful run into Portugal. The roads seem generally less well maintained than in Spain and tolls are electronic here – your card is read and overhead cameras log how far you go and hence how much you pay. We had taken advice and decided to stay with the tolls as the non-toll roads are often very poor, but the cost was not prohibitive anyway.

Parked up on one of two campervan specific sites here, E7 per night without electric (the solar panel is performing really well). We have a lovely clean site with generous pitches, showers, the usual water facilities, wifi, views of the pine woods and a 400 metre walk to the cliffs and a beautiful beach – it’s a hard life.

We are just chilling here for a while so I shan’t  bore you with daily entries. Several days have been superbly warm and sunny – walks along the cliffs and back along the beach, time on the beach, couple of swims for me (too cold for Sam) and time sitting in the sunshine by the van, admiring the view and watching the people and the wildlife. A large (150ish) flock of sheep and a few goats have come right by us a few times, guided in a very laid back way by a shepherd and his three dogs. Some of the sheep and goats have bells so the sound is lovely and the shepherd is clearly very fond of his dogs, which he talks to as well as sometimes chatting with the sheep too. One of the three dogs is still a pup and is clearly keen but a bit over-eager, one is more experienced and calmer and the oldest walks with a limp and clearly keeps everything on track – lovely to watch them work and play.

On Saturday 28th we decided to walk along the cliffs and beach to Vilamoura – we are about half way between there and Albufeira. Sandy and John had visited and recommended it to us so we thought it well worth the walk. It was a great walk (although we knew we had done it by the time we got back- 15K mostly up and down or in the sand) and a nice town which nestles into a gap between the cliffs and spreads well inland from the coast. Very tourism oriented as you would expect, with lots of nods to the high volumes of Brits who visits but with lots of lovely places to eat by the marina, so we decided to get some lunch at ‘The News’, which had some traditional Portuguese dishes on the menu – so we had a Greek Salad and an Italian Pizza!! Really nice food, good service and not too pricey considering the location. After lunch we explored the town inland a bit and then headed back along the coast to the van, arriving tired but happy with our day.

On Sunday/Monday the sky clouded over, the wind picked up and we had a good downpour which kept us pottering about round and in the van, reading cooking and generally chilling if with a slightly different vibe. We may be becoming scrabble addicts, but other than that all is well!

Namaste

Sam and Paul x