Author: Rudy

Well, if the weather forecasts are right, today just MIGHT be our last golf game here in the Algarve. The golf courses are all hoping for some rain — it’s been unusually dry here this winter and the fairways are looking a little brown. But for tourists like us, the weather has been great for golfing, and we’re hoping for one more rain-free day after today.

Dave and I drove to the Santo Antonio course for our 9:50 tee time. We both think this is the best course of the three we’ve golfed, and unlike Espiche and BoaVista, it’s just not very busy here and we always get on right away and golf as a twosome. 

I know you are all wondering how my tee shot on the first hole went this morning, but I’m afraid my game isn’t any better than the Canadian hockey and curling teams’ games were in the Olympics. You’d think that Dave’s rule that we can have 2 tee shots on the first hole would be of some benefit to me, but it only means that I get to lose TWO balls right off the bat. And so, gentle reader, I will NOT bore you with the hole-by-hole analysis of my game today — no, let it suffice to say that I finished with a score of 100, and that’s not the same as 100 PER CENT. But the large cold beverage that awaited us at the 19th hole was as delicious as ever.

We got back to the apartment at around 1:30, and Dave fried up some hot dogs for our lunch (already a ‘red-letter’ day!). MaryLou took off just about as soon as we got home — I think by now she’s more efficient working on her eight daily tasks WITHOUT listening to Dave’s full-volume highlights of the Jets game and the Colbert Report on the computer.

I doddled around a bit, and then at around 4pm I put on my walking shorts and went for a quick bit of exercise. I stopped on the promenade and found a couple of size 5 t-shirts with ‘PORTUGAL’ on them, and ‘negotiated’ with the old woman who said she “really needed the money” until we both felt we’d been ripped off. I stuffed the bag with the t-shirts into my ‘poofy vest’ pocket and continued on my hike. I didn’t want to be gone for much more than an hour (and miss happy hour!) so my plan was to run up our hill to the big obelisk at the top — twice. That would get my heart pumping and my shirt sweaty and make me feel better about eating those hotdogs for lunch.

Along the way I pondered some more on those interesting chimneys on top of most of the buildings here in the Algarve. MaryLou had ‘googled’ it this morning and learned that they are unique to this region. They are called ‘Algarve chimneys’, and although they look like they might be a reminder of the Arab influence on this region, they are not ‘Moorish’ at all. No one really knows who designed the first one and why they continue to be so popular here. It turns out that they are mostly decorative, and not functional at all. I took a few photos on my way up and will post them here for your enjoyment.

Speaking of posting photos, I’ve uploaded a couple of pictures I took the big obelisk at the top of the hill. After running (well, if not running, at least climbing as fast as I could) up and down the hill twice, I sat down in the shade of said obelisk to catch my breath and give my heart rate a chance to return to normal. There was an elderly couple already perched on the ledge at the base of the obelisk. We began a short conversation — they told me they’d been coming to this place since 2001, and marvelled at how things had changed since then. I could hear by the woman’s accent that she was German. The husband didn’t speak English, so she would translate some of our conversation to him. Then at one point I answered one of his questions directly, in German. Oh ho! Der kann auch Deutsch sprechen? He asked me from which part of England I was from. I corrected him: Nicht von England, but from Kanada, wo es sehr kallt ist. And so I had to explain why it was that I could speak German (and not French). And then it was time to say ‘Auf wiedersehn’ and run back down the hill or for sure I’d be late for happy hour.

I got home just before Dave got back from the grocery store — with the fixings for G&Ts. After cooling off a bit and a quick shower — and snapping a few pics from my bedroom window of the sun setting in the west — we sat in the living room and waited for the clock to reach 7:13, the agreed upon time for going downstairs for pizza. Dave had a short snooze and I looked at my photos (and a few of Max diving into the pool at the C’mon Inn in Grand Forks, which Alex sent me). 

There are actually TWO pizza restaurants on the main floor of our building. Side by side. Which one should we go to? We chose the first one, the one where the woman inside always smiles at us whenever we walk by. We sat down at a table and the pizza maker guy comes over to take our order. We order a litre of sangria (red), and two pizzas and one salad to share between the three of us. The Pizza Nazi doesn’t get it. “You want one special and two pieces? How many pieces do you want?” I seems he uses ‘pieces’ and ‘pizzas’ interchangeably. After a lengthy discussion the complicated order is sorted out and Mr Pizza gives us a final lesson in how to order ‘pieces’ the correct way for the next time we come here. He goes into the bar and starts squeezing fruits and crushing in ice cubes for our sangria. After a short wait the smiley woman brings us our two pizzas. She is very friendly and the rest of the meal is as pleasant as it is delicious. 

Back upstairs the snooker semi-finals are on TV. MaryLou is soon snuggled up in her blankies; the excitement of the match on TV doesn’t keep her attention for long. Dave and I sit and watch for a while until we can stand it no longer — and it’s time for our nightly ‘Venetian’ ice cream dessert and a glass of port. The end of (another) perfect day. I nod off a few times before the best of eleven snooker match is decided — and finally drag my weary butt off to bed. My day is done and I am fast asleep by 10:30. For the first time since I started writing my daily entries, I conclude this day without a blog post. I’ll do it tomorrow. (I DID it tomorrow — and since both of my faithful readers are in another time zone they won’t even notice!)

Today was a truly ‘lazy’ day. The only thing on the agenda today was a dinner in Lagos with some friends of Dave and Marylou. So I slept in until around 8:30. I got up and made coffee and we had breakfast. After breakfast we all sat around for much of the morning. I went out into town just before noon, looking for a souvenir t-shirt. None to be found. Maybe I’ll try again on the weekend — there may be a few more ‘beach’ shops opening up this weekend.

I had lunch and fished out another page from the stash of Winnipeg Free Press crossword puzzle pages and started working on a sudoku. Dave and Marylou went for a little drive out to where we’d seen a whole bunch of storks sitting up in their nests on the top of tall poles. They returned shortly before 3pm and Marylou immediately set out on a hike across our ‘mountain’, heading to Lagos where we were scheduled to meet Wilf and Karen, Winnipeg friends of the Driedgers who happen to be here for the next week or so. Marylou wanted to get a head start on the walk, so that she’d arrive at the meeting point around the same time as Dave and I, who apparently walk too fast for her.

As we walked along the cliffs today, we spotted a couple of hang-gliders hovering over the coastline, catching the updraft and then flying back and forth above us. We caught up to Marylou when she was just down from the cliffs, and making the big climb up the sidewalk into Lagos. 

We met Wilf and Karen at the bridge and were just walking back together along the main road in Lagos when we passed by a restaurant that had a menu that interested us. Dave had been waiting to try the Portuguese specialty dish, ‘cataplana’, so that’s what we ordered. Cataplana is a popular traditional seafood dish here in the Algarve. Fish and seafood, like prawns and clams, are cooked in a copper cooking pot called a Cataplana. And it was quite good, too!

We said goodbye to Wilf and Karen — they are staying at a B&B in Lagos — and caught the hourly bus back to our place in Luz. Dave found the channel that was playing the snooker championships from Scotland, and we had our evening glass of port. We were in bed before 11. Tomorrow is another golf game for Dave and me at the Santo Antonio course.

A quick breakfast again today, and then we high-tailed it out to Santo Antonio golf course for our 9:20 am tee time. We’d been told that Thursdays could be busy, so we were prepared for a round that could be a bit slower than our last one here, which was about 3 hours. But it really didn’t look very busy to us.

I was a bit unlucky right off the start: I took out my one yellow Taylormade ball, hoping that I could play and entire round with it, then smacked it too far right with my drive and couldn’t find it after that. Oh well, if that’s as bad as it’s going to gets…

There was no one behind us at all, so we never felt any pressure. And it looked like a couple of holes ahead of us the course was wide open. So the only problem was the two groups ahead of us — they were holding us up on EVERY hole. Finally, on the eleventh hole, the guys ahead of us let us play through. Whew! at least we didn’t have to watch those guys duff their shots along the fairway ahead of us anymore. That left 3 ‘walkers’ who certainly were not in a hurry either. They held us up for another 3 or 4 holes and finally let us play through on about the 16th hole.

It was 1 o’clock by the time we were sitting on the deck with our cold post-game beers. But it had been a fun morning — not hot, but not cold either. We golfed in shirtsleeves. We’ve got one more game scheduled for Saturday at the same course.

We drove home. Marylou was out in town somewhere. I FaceTimed with Alex and Max for a bit. Then I went out for a fast walk to the neighbouring town and back — 90 minutes to do almost 10 kms on the rocky pathway. When I returned we had happy hour at the apartment.

At around 7:00 pm Marylou made Denver sandwiches and we had supper. Then we sat down in the living room and watched “The Florida Project” which I rented from iTunes. 

At around 11:00 pm we were all done — finished our movie and our glass of port and time to go to bed.

After breakfast today I did a load of laundry. The washer is S – L – O – W, so that meant we had to wait for a while until the load was done and I had a chance to hang the laundry on the lines outside on our patio, and THEN we could get into the car and begin today’s “adventure”.

The initial plan was to go up the west coast of Portugal for a way, but we changed it at the last minute and decided to go a bit further east and see the ‘Seven Hanging Valleys’. We drove out near Porches, the place where we visited Jim and Bonny a couple of weeks ago, and then down to Praia da Marinha, near a beach, where there was a car park. And from there we set out on the trail. 

We were just barely on the marked path and already our camera lenses were starting to wear out. So much beauty! Almost TOO much beauty. What am I going to do with all those photos?! Well, for now, I’ll try uploading them (although the internet here in the apartment isn’t fast, and our TV channels come to us via that same internet — so I can’t upload my photos right now because then the TV picture goes blank. I will wait until Dave has gone to bed before I upload my fantastic photos.

We walked from Praia da Marinha to Praia de Vale Centeanes, a distance of about 6 kms one way. The trail is winding and goes up and down a lot as it meanders around along the top of the cliffs. The scenery is great; not just the cliffs, or the sinkholes (where the ground has fallen into the sea), but also the vegetation. Flowers and interesting creatures can be seen along most of the walk. The day was perfect for our activity — sunny, warm, a refreshing breeze coming off the water.

We planned to stop for lunch when we got to the other ‘end’ of this trail, near Praia de Vale Centeanes, but it took quite a bit longer than we’d anticipated to get to the other end of the trail. So we were VERY thirsty and tired when we finally arrived at Centeanes, and so it was doubly frustrating that we still had to go up and down and around and back again a few times before we realized that there WAS NO RESTAURANT for us on that beach. So we ended up hiking up and around to the top of yet another big cliff where my GPS showed that there would be a restaurant. I think it was after 1 o’clock when we sat down for a large beer and a sandwich. And we still had another time as far to get back to the car park!

But we made it. It was around 4:30 when we got into our car and decided that instead of driving home directly, we’d check out the cinema in the nearby town of Portimão. We could go to a restaurant for supper first and  see a movie at around 6:30 and THEN go home. So that’s what we did. We shared a pizza and then at 6:20 I went to see “The Post” (the Driedgers had already seen it) while Dave and Marylou went to see “The Blank Panther”. I enjoyed the story in “The Post”. After the movie I waited a few minutes for Dave and Marylou’s movie to end. Early reviews (from Marylou): not really a very good movie. And although that movie is breaking some box office records right now, here in Portimão the Driedgers were the only two people in the theatre. 

We drove home in the dark. The roads here in Portugal are winding, with many traffic circles to interrupt your progress, but fun to drive — and not too much traffic most of the time. 

Back at the ranch we had a little dish of ice cream and a glass of port and watched some more snooker finals on TV. By midnight it was bed time. Dave and I have another early tee time at the Santo Antonio golf course tomorrow.

We have 3 tee times booked at the Santo Antonio golf course this week: today, Thursday, and Saturday. And today was the earliest we’ve had to get up to make it to the golf course for our game. So it was actually mostly dark outside when I got up and showered. When I got to the kitchen to make coffee, the sun was just climbing out of the eastern sea, and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky! There would be no clouds all day — it was actually a bit on the WARM side in the Algarve today!

I quickly made a ham and cheese sandwich to take along, and then Dave and I drove the 15-20 minutes to the Santo Antonio golf course. Our tee time was for 8:40 am. Dave paid and got the golf cart and we loaded up the clubs and were at the first tee at around 8:30. A little ahead of several groups, and so the starter told us to go ahead and tee off. We were hoping to improve on the scores we had when we golfed here for the first time on Saturday — but we settled for having ‘just as much fun’ as we did last time. And we were sitting on the patio with cold beers on the table, overlooking the 10th tee and the 18th green, a short three hours after we teed off! Record time!

We got back to the apartment by one o’clock. I picked up some cheddar cheese at the SPAR before heading up to our place, and then Dave made us each a grilled cheese sandwich for lunch. Marylou was heading out the door — off to find a place in town or on the beach where she could get her activities done without ‘the boys’ to bug her. I FaceTimed with Alex and Max — they were having breakfast and then off to school. Then I Skyped with my mom and dad — they were watching Olympics and enjoying the falling snow. After I’d cleaned up the dishes I headed out for a walk. That morning golf game just went by too quickly and left far too much of the day still available for more activities. 

I decided to head west — to the little village of Burgau, where the three of us went for a brunch a week or two ago. It’s 5 kms to the village via the coastal walk, and the 10 km roundtrip took me an hour and 45 minutes. When I got back we had gin and tonics for our happy hour. Marylou had gone shopping for all the fixings she needed to make chicken fajitas, which is what she made for supper for us. Delicious!

By 8:00 pm we were all done dinner, cleaned up in the kitchen, and back at our stations in the living room. Marylou was sleeping in her chair while Dave sampled almost all the TV channels, looking for a curling game. And I updated my journal. We watched some snooker on TV. Finally, we checked Netflix to see if there was anything new. In the end we did our best to stay awake watching a documentary about Hitchcock’s “Psycho”. And then we went to bed.

Because our Saturday night visitors recommended it to us, we decided that today we would walk back into Lagos, but take a right turn once we got into the town and walk the 3 or so extra kilometres to the lighthouse. We can see the lighthouse from the cliff path, but so far we hadn’t taken the time to have a closer look. 

So after breakfast we set out to do just that. We had talked about taking sandwiches along, but at the last minute decided to eat lunch at one of the cafes on the beach near the lighthouse and have supper at home later. 

Well, it turned out to be quite a walk. Not only was it a LONG walk, especially for the Driedgers who had only walked TO Lagos (one way) up until today. We probably walked close to 15 kms today. But the big treat was the scenery once we got to the coast. The lighthouse itself was locked behind a big fence and not at all interesting. But the rocks and the caves in the coastline were incredible. I really couldn’t help but take a ton of photos. So here is a gallery of what we saw:

We stopped to have lunch at a restaurant near the lighthouse. 

We discovered that the path along THESE cliffs actually extended MOST of the way back to where our cliff path started, so we scouted that out as we walked back to our apartment. 

When we got home we were all warm and tired. Dave made some G&Ts for us and we watched the final two episodes of “Alias Grace”. Although I had enjoyed the production for the most part, when we finally got to the end I was quite disappointed with the ambiguity in the plot. I HAD read the book a few years ago, and I’d forgotten much of the story, but this show didn’t bring back much of the story for me. 

I fried up the ‘wieners’ we bought yesterday — it turned out they were more like large breakfast sausages and didn’t sit quite right in our hot dog buns. But that was our supper!

After supper we had our standard ‘Venetian’ ice cream for dessert and then retired to the living room to watch a bit of snooker on TV. A final glass of port finished off the Driedgers and by 10 o’clock they were both in bed. I sat in the living room and watched a bit more TV and listened to our space heater fans while I uploaded all my photos and wrote my journal. And then, just before 11pm I too called it a night. Gotta get up early tomorrow because Dave and I have an early tee time at Santo Antonio golf course tomorrow. 

I woke up a little earlier than usual today. In fact, after my shower I went into the kitchen — and was there alone! Hmmm… Where was Marylou? Usually she has already researched about 12 things and completed 4 of her 8 daily tasks by the time I show up in the kitchen. And Dave? He must surely be ill or he’d be in his usual place on the couch in front of the TV, peering into his phone and working his magic on one of his online Scrabble games — bloop, bloop, bloop, BRRRNG, BRRRNG — his phone sounding like a Saturday night at the casino. But no, I’m here alone. So I make coffee and watch the sun rise over the beach below us. And I savour the quietness of the morning.

But I’m not ahead of the Driedgers by much — and soon we are all drinking coffee and planning the day ahead. Not a lot on the agenda today. After all, it IS a day of rest. I clean out the dishwasher and gather up the bottles and pizza boxes from last night and take the garbage downstairs to the recycling stations across the street. After breakfast we decide that we will go to the lent service in the church across the way at 11:30. It’s the least we can do to try to make amends for all the heretical church talk around our dining room table last night. Nothing like a good old basic liturgical church service to get us back on track. (You’d think I’d get some credit from my mother for going to church while on a ‘holiday’, but since this service wouldn’t be Mennonite and/or German, I’m sure she would say ‘Daut meint enivay really nuscht.’)

The warm morning sun was enough to get me to switch to shorts instead of jeans. I figured since we are ‘tourists’ in a tourist area, I could get away with wearing shorts to church. When we arrive at the little church just before 11:30 the benches are already mostly filled. We sit near the back. Four people to a bench, twenty benches plus a few chairs in the back and a small ‘choir’ in the front. We are here to sing the Eucharist. It is an Anglican service in a Catholic church. The minister walks in and we begin with some ‘gentle music from the organ’. When we join in to sing the first congregational song, the sound is remarkable. It’s LOUD and it sounds pretty good. I was convinced that there was a choir singing above and behind us, in the balcony. But no, the sound that filled that little rectangular brick building was created by about a hundred old mostly British ex-pats. It is the first Sunday of Lent, as the pastor informs us. A few members of the congregation are wearing purple to celebrate the occasion (and there are more than a few old ladies sporting purple-ish hair-dos). We have little booklets so can read along with the pastor. It’s all scripted out for us. Oh, the pastor DOES give us a little ‘personal’ story in the middle of it all about the trials and tribulations of trying to mix up the ash for Ash Wednesday so it has the right consistency and ‘stickiness’ so it will stick to foreheads when he plasters it on in the shape of a cross. I guess you had to be there.

Well, we stood up and sat down quite a few times, and sang songs from the hymn book that only had the words, no music, printed in it (but everyone sang heartily!). But then, about halfway through, it was time for communion and the three of us slinked (slunk?) out of the church. It’s not because we weren’t enjoying the service (we weren’t), but I was getting pretty cold sitting there in shorts and sandals, and besides, we were not all that excited about this whole ‘Anglican’ thing — why should take part in a service in a church founded by a king of England who got mixed up in the whole church business because he wanted permission to annul marriages to wives he’d lost interest in. So we shook the dust off our sandals and headed back to our (nice and warm) apartment and had lunch.

Lots of leftovers in the fridge, so that was lunch. After lunch I changed into crappier shorts and a t-shirt and went for a walk on the cliffs. It took me about an hour and a half to walk to the little beach cafe on the outskirts of Lagos and back. Some great views, and lots of walkers on the path today.

When I got back to the apartment I had a short FaceTime with Alex and Max. Dave was watching a movie on TV and Marylou was sketching in her art book. Marylou says drawing is good exercise for the brain; since I’d now exercised my legs, I thought I might try a little brain exercise myself. So I selected a fine HB2 pencil from Marylou’s collection and doodled a portrait of the Driedgers in Marylou’s art book.

After another shower, the three of us hopped into the car and drove into Lagos to do some grocery shopping. There are TWO smaller SPAR supermarkets within a block of our place, but we’ve driven by some larger grocery stores a few times and thought we might go check them out. We came back home with the back seat filled with bags and bottles — and it was all we could do to carry all that stuff up to our fourth-floor apartment in one trip.

Happy hour in the kitchen. Then we watched an episode of ‘Alias Grace’ on Netflix before Dave fried up burgers and beans for our supper. Another episode after supper. And then our ‘day of rest’ ended — all three of us headed off to bed at around 10:30 — all that ‘resting’ had made us quite tired. Tomorrow we plan to take a picnic lunch with us as we walk to Lagos, and out to the lighthouse at the point there. So I’d better be off now, and get some rest.

Most of the golf courses around here ended their ‘winter rates’ on the 15th. But one course had special prices in effect until the end of this month. And on Saturdays the special rate is in effect not only for the ‘early bird special’, but all day. So it was a good surprise to find out that not only is the rate a good deal, but the course is the most fun of all the three courses we’ve played here in the Algarve so far. 

Santo Antonio is just under half an hour drive from here — heading west. That’s not bad for us, but I wonder if it’s just a bit too far away for the bigger resort towns east of us — and perhaps that is why the rates are a bit better at this course. Dave and I showed up a bit early for our scheduled tee time, but the front desk offered that we might just head to the first tee and see if we couldn’t start earlier. And that’s what we did. 

The first tee was up on a hill, looking down on the fairway below. The green was up on the hill across from us. And the fairway sloped right to left. A bit intimidating for our first drive of the day. But we both hit safely and Dave parred the hole. A good start. Plus, we were golfing as a twosome. And by the fourth hole, the group ahead of us let us play through and we were off and running. Instead of a five-plus-hour game, we played this course in about three-and-a-half hours. The course was in very good condition and the people working at the course were friendly. We decided to book three more games for the week ahead.

When we got back to the apartment we tidied the place up a bit in preparation for visitors. Werner and Adelia, friends of Dave and Marylou (from their church in Winnipeg, and Werner and Dave both are retired teachers who have a part time job driving for the Lexus dealership in Winnipeg) and THEIR friends Richard and Caroline, from southern Ontario. After they arrived at around 4:30 we went for a short walk up and down the promenade here in Luz, and halfway up our ‘hill’. Back in our apartment, Marylou had set the table and prepared hors d’oeuvres and a salad. After we’d had our happy hour Dave went downstairs and ordered pizza from one of the little pizza restaurants on the ground floor of our building. We sat around the table, eating and visiting until around 11pm. The two couples are staying in a hotel in the neighbouring town of Lagos. We had a very fun evening getting to know and visiting with them.

Dave predicted great weather for today, and when I woke up I already knew he would be right. Sunshine. Big waves down on the beach where we could already spot surfers taking advantage of them by 8:30 in the morning. 

We had a lazy first half of the day. After breakfast I put in a load of laundry and when that ‘eco-friendly’ washer of ours with its big jet engine finally finished spinning my jeans and underwear out into space and back (90 minutes to do a load) the sun was already high in the sky. It wouldn’t take long for my clothes to dry out on the patio where we have 4 wash lines and 3 clothespins. So when Dave followed Marylou out to the promenade to do some reading or sketching or yoga or whatever they did there, I stayed back and finished a couple of sudokus while my clothes dried. 

At 12:30 we all met down near the beach where there are a couple of restaurants. Lunch time. I (finally!) had a hotdog for lunch. Almost warm out here! People are wearing shorts and sandals. I was wearing shorts and sandals!

Back at the apartment after lunch — I sat around and did a couple of crosswords. At around 3pm Marylou left for a hike across the big hill going back to Lagos. She wanted to get a head start on the boys and agreed to meet us at 5:45 near the pizza restaurant in the center of town. Dave and I hung out and listened to some golf on TV until 4 o’clock. Then I  got my hiking shoes on and Dave and I headed out to Lagos ourselves.

We found Marylou waiting for us when we arrived at the town centre. She’d done a bit of shopping and because she hadn’t taken a jacket along, now that the sun was setting, she was feeling somewhat cold. Dave navigated is to our restaurant, ‘Ol’ Bastard’s Fish and Chips’, but when we got there the doors were locked. We’d have to wait about 20 minutes before the doors opened. So we did.

I think we were the first customers of the day and of the season when at 6 o’clock sharp the doors opened and we went in and got a table. But we weren’t the only ones that were hungry for fish and chips tonight — the restaurant, like almost ALL restaurants here, was soon quite a busy place. Dave and I ordered ‘American style’ fish and chips; Marylou ordered three fish tacos, each one spicier than the one before it. 

After our meal we left and headed for the bus station. Dave had checked on the departure times for tonight, so we had about 15 minutes of waiting in the bus shelter until a large EVA bus rolled up and we got on. The 10-minute ride to our town (Luz) costs just under 5 euros for all three of us. Not too bad, and the bus drops us off right in front of our building. 

Back in our (now warm, cozy) room, we watched the second episode of Alias Grace on Netflix. And we had our ‘usual’ night snack of Venetian ice cream and a small glass of port. Dave and Marylou have been busy trying to arrange a dinner date with friends from Winnipeg who are staying in Lagos — I think we are expecting to get together with them tomorrow evening, although I’m not sure if it’s at our house or in Lagos. Dave and I have a golf date at the Santo Antonio golf course tomorrow. It advertises itself as “one of Europe’s most spectacular golf courses.” Okay! I’m looking forward to that.

Today we didn’t have a ‘plan’. So we made one up. Dave wanted to go to a ‘resort’ that we ‘almost’ booked. A place that is owned by someone from Winnipeg. So we took a drive to the small town of Ferreiras. It’s way out, near Faro, about an hour away from our place. We found the resort and went in to check it out. We even looked at a room. Confirmed. We’re happy where we are. So we marched back to our parked car. Got in and started heading back out of town.

Hold on. It’s noon and as we’re leaving town Dave spots the perfect lunch spot. We park again and go into the restaurant — order 3 ham and cheese sandwiches and small beers. “This is going to be our cheapest meal yet,” says Dave. Six euros total. We sit out at a small table on the sidewalk. The sun is warm. An old British guy starts talking to Dave and before you know it we’re having second thoughts about NOT staying here in this town. They’ve got the BEST restaurant in the Algarve (4 course top-quality meals for under 10 euros) and their little 300-seat ‘stadium’ hosts big-time professional English Premier League soccer teams. When done our sandwiches we hop back into the car and do a quick mini-tour of the stadium and the restaurant. Yep. Looks mighty good. 

The second (and final) stop of our road trip was to walk on the big long boardwalk at Albor Beach, a suburb of Portimao. It’s a boardwalk that stretches along a 3.5km beach. We took off our shoes and walked the length of the beach — and back along the boardwalk. On the way in we passed a sign next to a roadside bar advertising .99 euro large beers. Too good to pass up. So after our walk Dave navigated us back to the bar and we took advantage of the deal. By now it was mid-afternoon. Time to head back home. So we did.

Back at the apartment we quickly found our devices and caught up on the latest news and Scrabble scores. And a little afternoon snooze. Sometime after six Marylou made her way into the kitchen and warmed up the leftover spaghetti and meat sauce. Salads too. Another fine supper for hungry adventurers like us. 

After dishes were done we sat in the living room updating journals and online Scrabble games and making sure all our Facebook friends still ‘like’ us. And that our blogs link to Facebook. Social media is where it’s at, baby. We listened to a good old Gordon Lightfoot album on my AppleTV. The plan was to go to the English pub next door for a dessert and nightcap. And at around ten o’clock we Dave and I did. A little glass of port. No food served after ten. So for our little dish of ice cream we had to go back to our apartment. Dave dished it out while I cued up the first episode of “Alias Grace” on Netflix. Good day. And good night.