Day 4 - 26 April 2011 - Faro "with our top down" and The Return of the Troubadors
With Debbie on the path to recovery, we decided to revisit Faro in a healthy, non-emergency-room way. As we started out the day, we figured how to go topless in the car!
We took a nice, breezy car ride to Faro to see the non-hospital parts of the city. Faro’s old section had parts of a Medieval City, occupied at one time by the Moors. We bought tickets to see the Cathedral and The Chapel of The Bones (as eerie as it sounds). 68 rocky stairs took us up to the observation bell tower; beautiful views of the city and marina to be seen there.
Back down the 68 stairs, we went inside the Cathedral. It had stained glass, lots of religious artwork, and a very old organ inside. Then we went looking for The Chapel of The Bones. The guide had pointed us to an area with an open door. We went in, but there were “no bones about it.” Disappointed, but still not giving up, we went through another opening. Yep, there they were – skulls, femurs, lots of bones, cemented into a cross/altar with people buried underneath.
Well worth the €3 admission fee. Aside: Our guide book noted this Bone Chapel as “the ultimate in recycling” (who writes these guide books?).
We meandered through the cobblestone streets of Faro and came upon the same trio of street performers we had seen the day before in Tavira! The Troubadors must have been travelling in the same circuit we were! Another interesting thing we discovered while meandering is that storks like to build massive nests in very high places. Why are we telling you this? Well, because we saw them…everywhere!
We stopped for lunch. Jon had a Sagres beer and Debbie had a Pepsi Light and then our entrees came: Jon – Pork Tenderloin (which was so-so); Debbie – Steak with Mushrooms and Cream (had to have what Jon had on Sunday!).
As we were eating, guess who showed up on the sidewalk prepared to entertain the diners? The Tavira Trio of Troubadors! They played three notes and our waiter wagged his finger at them, and they left.
We drove topless back to the Villa with a stop at the fresh bread place (not a bakery, which is why we call it “the fresh bread place”) that Martin had told us about. We bought three fresh rolls for making garlic bread and headed home. We hadn’t yet planned our journey for the next day, but we were certain we would see the Tavira Trio again…
Day 5 - 27 April 2011 - Tablecloths, Monkfish, and "Why did we pick Portugal anyway?"
With Debbie feeling almost human again, we set out for Lagos (pronounced “La-gosh”) near the Western coast of Portugal. We never made it…but not for any bad reason. We were just enjoying ourselves in the cities along the way, Loulé (pronounced “Low-oo-lay”) and Portimão (pronounced “Port-e-moung”).
Loulé was inland a bit but on our way west. We wanted to see the market (Mercado) there, but didn’t know where it was located. As we were walking through town, about 6 blocks from the parking garage, we saw this cool looking, almost Turkish architecture, building.
Turns out it was the market. As Jon’s Dad always used to say, “There is no amount of planning that can replace dumb luck.” The market was large and very clean, full of fresh seafood, vegetables, Piri Piri spices, and collectibles.
Debbie spotted a round tablecloth that was exactly what she had been looking for. It is a Provençal pattern with black olives on a yellow background, and we now own it.
Turns out it was the market. As Jon’s Dad always used to say, “There is no amount of planning that can replace dumb luck.” The market was large and very clean, full of fresh seafood, vegetables, Piri Piri spices, and collectibles.
Debbie spotted a round tablecloth that was exactly what she had been looking for. It is a Provençal pattern with black olives on a yellow background, and we now own it.
Back on the road to Lagos, we stopped in Portimão, a very large beachy/resort town. We bought a hat for baldy since we’d been driving through the Algarve with the top down and his head was turning quite red. We walked down to the beach (Praia de Rocha) and had lunch, seaside. The beach was pristine and the water a beautiful blue.
Jon had Portugese-style Steak and Debbie had Monkfish Kabob. We also had some homemade Red Sangria that was amazing:
We were becoming quite accustomed to three hour lunches in the late afternoon. As it was now almost dinner time, we decided that Lagos was too far and we opted to return to the Villa. What a great day this was, and we were both so happy that Debbie was fully able to enjoy it!
Side Note: About two years ago, we bought the latest novel from one of our all-time favourite Authors, Alan Folsom. Debbie read it shortly after we bought it and then passed it on to Jon. Jon let it sit for quite some time and actually just started reading it just before this vacation began. About 100 pages into the book, Jon noted that the main character was about to head to…Portimão in the Algarve region of Portugal. The story unfolds with more than half of the book taking place in the Algarve and Lisbon. As we got to talking about it, we remembered that this book was the reason we even originally looked at Portugal as a vacation spot. Debbie read it and thought “Algarve? I’ve never heard of it.” A bit of research and two years later, here we were. The whole kismet part of it was that I was reading the Algarve section of the book while we were in the Algarve and shortly after the characters went to Lisbon (a couple days later into our trip), so did we. Clearly, Portugal was our destiny for this April! P.S. The book is called The Hadrian Memorandum and we highly recommend it (and any of the other books by Alan Folsom).
Day 6 – 28 April 2011 – Two Americans, Living in England, Staying in Portugal, Visiting Spain (aka, "You mean we drove all the way to Spain for Frappacinos and Fritos?")
We set off for Espanha around 9:30 a.m. and arrived in Seville approximately 2 hours later. The weather was beautiful, but the closer we got to Seville, the hotter it got. Turns out it was 93 degrees Farenheit (in April!) and a much hotter sun than we are used to. Apparently, Seville gets to 120 in August. No thanks!
After an unplanned tour of the city enjoyed while we looked for parking, we ended up in an underground garage. When we emerged from the garage to street level, we were smack in front of Seville’s bullfighting ring (Plaza de Toros).
The bullfighting season starts in April and runs through September. There was a fight scheduled for 5:00 pm. Decent seats were €75 up to €185 and cheap seats, €25, were in the blazing sun at the top of the arena. Again – No thanks!
Side note: In Spain, they apparently still kill the bull in the fight; in Portugal, they let the bull live – we’re not quite sure how that works…anyway, back to Seville.
We walked through the historic district and saw the cathedral. It is touted as being the biggest cathedral in the world (we tend to agree – this thing was huge!).
Needing a break, we saw a sign ahead showing the international symbol for respite and beverages…Starbucks…directly across from the cathedral. As sad as it sounds, it was the perfect stop. Cold Frappacinos in the hot Spanish outdoors, people watching, in the shade of the massive cathedral; doesn’t get much better than that. Rested, we walked toward the shopping district which was not dissimilar to shopping districts all over Europe.
Had we wanted to, we could have taken a tour of the city by horse-drawn buggy
or open air bus. Being the daredevils we are, we did it on foot and in our convertible! After looking for an hour to find a specific neighborhood of Seville so we could eat, we finally gave up and stopped at a gas station to buy sodas and a bag of Fritos.
Seville, it turns out, wasn’t exactly what we had envisioned. A beautiful city, but we thought it would be somehow more intimate or have a more romantic feel to it. It was a very large city and felt just like a big city. All the same, we are glad we went and grateful we had the opportunity.
Side note 2: Spanish is an easier language for us (especially Debbie) than Portugese. Portugese sounds like a mixture of Spanish, Italian, French, Latin, and Russian. Walking down the street, if you heard people speaking Portugese and you were unfamiliar with the language, you would likely assume it was Russian or Slavic…anyway, back to Spain.
We decided to go a border town of Spain/Portugal as we were heading back to the Algarve. Turned out our destination city was in Portugal, not in Spain. We drove through Castro de Marin, with an old fortress-type castle on the hill.
Beautiful. We headed on to Monte Gordo, a charming seaside Portugese town for dinner. While we were having our onion pizza (awesome),
we studied the street vendor across from the café and saw a sachel with red roosters and “Portugal” on it, that we knew (for reasons too racy to put in the blog) was perfect for our niece Robyn. She loved it and now uses it as her everyday purse!
After Monte Gordo, we headed back to the Villa and arrived around midnight, ready for a good night’s sleep so we would be rested for the Royal Wedding from which we were escaping.
