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Writer's pictureAnna Cooper

Back in Europe, the Algarve, a £15 apartment & Portugese life

On 19th October we caught the ferry from the Morocco mainland to Algeciras in Spain. The 1 hour voyage was uneventful and not crowded so apart from a Spanish family unable to keep their feral children from screaming and racing around the boat, there is nothing to report. I find ferries expensive - especially for the length of journey - it cost £150 for a 1 hour journey for 2 people and a car. How does it cost that much? The ferry runs every couple of hours so they must make a killing. Apart from the additional weight, we had no impact on the boat - I didn't even use the facilities while on board. It just doesn't equate to the £400 we're spending to travel 28 hours from Santander in north Spain to Portsmouth, UK later in November.


Disembarking the ferry on to Spanish soil at about 2pm, I had a brief but meaningful moment of rejoicing in the car and turned my mobile data back on for the first time in over 9 weeks. I was so happy - just the ability to check messages or look something up on the go feels like a real novelty again. I had gotten used to being off grid when travelling, but it is good to be connected again.

Isla Christina

I had planned for us to drive west to the Portugese border but Gaz announced that we needed to go and see some old friends. Which friends? Well that would be Ping and Pong. If you don't know who Ping and Pong are, bear with me. The story of Ping and Pong will be uploaded soon.

We plugged in their location into the sat nav and headed off, but these adventures are never straight forward and it took a while to locate them. Gaz then spent an inordinate amount of time with them, showing them love, feeding them and fussing before saying his goodbyes (finally) so that we could begin to head towards Portugal and our next port of call.


We actually stayed just East of the border in Spain for 4 days in a camping cabin on the edge of a small but lovely coastal town called Isla Christina. Apart from getting lost in the one way system common with old Spanish towns with narrow cobbled streets, we spent a sunny afternoon exploring the town, enjoying the harbour and promenade. Gaz made friends with a large wild parrot who was squawking and had quite the personality entertaining us for about 10 minutes.


The cabin was great, spacious and very cheap (what we need right now) but the weather was not on our side. 4 days of persistent rain and as mentioned in a previous blog, we didn't really pack for cooler rainy weather. During a break in the rain Gaz went to stretch his legs and returned 30 minutes later like a drowned rat. bless him. It was good to be still for a couple of days though. We picked up groceries and cooked meals in the cabin and relaxed. No need to rush this time away.

When we moved on to Portugal we noticed a sign referring to E-Toll, but we didn't see any toll booths so assumed we must be ok. We were heading to Portimao in the Algarve, which is about 2/3 across the south coast of Portugal, but on our way we spent a few hours exploring the lovely Portugese town of Tavira, sited on the banks of the Gilao river. We meandered through the cobbled streets and had a simple lunch in a restaurant in the square and spent time enjoying the beautiful river before leaving the picturesque town and heading to our next port of call, Portimao.

Tavira, Portugal

En route, I did further research and found that we should have registered our car with the tolling system in Portugal before arriving. For those interested, see the bottom of the page for info.


Driving through the Algarve brought back memories of holidays years ago. it's vastly different than driving in Morocco, the Algarve is such an established holiday area, you're basically driving from one resort to the next with billboards promoting the next water park, crazy golf course or supermarket.


Soon we arrived in Portimao and our bargain apartment, that I was a little worried about given the price. I booked on booking.com, but that has gone wrong before, so I was a little anxious that we might be staying in a filthy hovel. I couldn't have been more wrong. A mere £15 a night bought us a studio apartment with good sized bathroom, two comfy single beds that we pushed together, a kitchen with all the facilities we needed, a dining table and chairs, TV and huge balcony. That came with free parking, free wifi, a pool, and a lovely warm and welcoming receptionist. Was it 5 star? no. but the apartment was in great shape, clean and modern with good facilities. We would recommend it to anyone looking for a cheap but pleasant stay in the Algarve. For some reason I didn't take any pictures of the place, but here's a link if you're interested. Note: the price I could see on mobile was significantly less than what I could see on my laptop, so it's always worth logging into the booking.com App on your phone to check for a better price!


So that was our base for a week. And from there we explored all along the Algarve coast, which is very beautiful whatever the weather. But we did well on that front too - a week of fairly clear weather and temperatures of 24 every day.



We explored the farthest South-Western tip of mainland Europe, where for only a few Euros you can enter not only an interesting Fort, but access the peninsula too. We walked several miles around the tip before heading back to the fort and saw fishermen stood at the top of the sheer cliffs that must be 30m to the water, and they were teetered on the edge leaning over fishing with great long lines. Madness. I couldn't watch for long. check out the fisherman here >>


Further along the coast at Lagos, you can walk across the cliffs and see amazing coastline of sand coloured limestone rocks and pillars, where the wind and water erosion has created a beautiful landscape. Further along the coast at Ferraguda you can access caves from the cliffs and from the sand and sea.


Silves

A favourite location was the town of Silves, set on a hill with a fantastic castle perched at the top. Such a quaint and picturesque place to visit. We wandered up and down the cobbled streets, admiring the colourful buildings and ancient architecture.


I had researched a cheap but highly recommended place to eat, so we headed to Casa Pina, a small multi-generational family run restaurant, but arrived at the end of a party - there were balloons everywhere. We asked if they were serving and they ushered us in saying yes yes. The first 30 mins was painful with children screaming and running around - clearly the party had finished only moments before we rocked up and they were in that 'almost sorted' state, where some people just don't leave and others are still enjoying the freedom from parenthood that the party presented. I smiled through most of this realising that it's just crazy backwater portugese life, but when a child careered into me sat at the table, I reacted with a noise of irritation and the parent stepped in and took the child away. After that, one of the children started to cry and I smiled inwardly knowing that this signaled the end, and sure enough within about 5 minutes, the people had left and the restaurant had quiet time. The grandson who spoke great English came over and apologised and was so worried that we were enjoying the food in spite of the craziness. And you know what? We did. The food was delicious and a good price and the family were lovely.


Silves

Portugese tolls There are 2 types of tolling - traditional and electronic. As a visitor to Portugal you have to be prepared for both. Traditional tolls are as you'd expect - physical booths where some are designed for an electronic device and others are manned so you can pay cash. These are fine and should pose no problem. The E-toll system is however more tricky. There is no physical toll booth. instead there is a bank of overhead cameras (easy to miss) that record your number plate. You must either register your vehicle with the e-tolling system (you can do this online) or before you leave the country, you can check how much you owe and pay it into a post office - which will mean running around trying to find a post office that's open. My advice? Before travelling into Portugal, just register your bank with the tolling system, so if you inadvertently end up on an e-toll road, you're covered. They can deduct the amount from your account. Find out more about Portugese tolls here>>



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