And... more of the Algarve...

We decided to go Portimao for gas and return to Silves for another night, eventually leaving Silves on Sunday morning after stocking up with food. We decided to follow a route shown in a leaflet we picked up in Monchique, the first point being the Barragem do Arade, a dam surrounded by lovely countryside. We stopped for lunch, had a walk round then partially drove round the bendy narrow road alongside the dam and then onto the scenic country road to Sao Bartolomeu de Messines. Although we’ve seen orange and lemon trees throughout Portugal, this part of the Algarve seems to have more than ever, with fields taken over with hundreds and hundreds of trees. We’ve also recently started noticing almond trees as they’re in blossom at the moment. We have a bit of a walk around Sao Bartolomeu de Messines but there isn’t anything of interest to us so we move on to the next place on the route, Paderne. We park up, go for a walk and fill up with water.

The next day we drive on towards the castle which is a couple of miles out of Paderne, deciding to stop at a local washing facility when we see 4 or 5 other motorhomers there. It’s a lovely sunny but windy day, so we decide to do some washing, hang it out, have lunch then go on a walk. The pedestrian route to the castle is signposted, we walk through farmland that seems to have been abandoned. At the foot of the castle is a board giving a couple of walking options, we take the route that takes us along the river, across a ford, past a waterwheel, over a medieval bridge and then up the hill to the castle. The views around us were lovely, the only thing that spoilt it slightly was the sound of the motorway in the distance. We return to the motorhome just over 2 hours later.

On Tuesday we travelled a few miles on to Alte, a small, pretty village on a hillside. Unfortunately major road works were going on in the village centre with diggers and lorries everywhere while the roads were being re-cobbled. We have a good walk around, taking in the “small fountain” and the “large fountain” return to the motorhome for lunch and then go for another walk stopping along the way for a coffee and a traditional Portuguese custard tart. We found some lemons to pick so cooked some nice lemon and garlic chicken with potato wedges and salad for tea :-)

The next day we drove to the Rocha de Pena area and parked in the little village of Penima. The Rocha de Pena is a protected cliff area with a walk up and around it. We did the walk which took about 2.5 hours, longer than we expected as it was only 5km, but a lot of it was uphill and quite rocky. We didn’t start the walk until nearly midday, so we were starting to get a bit hungry! Luckily towards the end of the walk was a café so we stopped for a toastie and then continued. We then drove on towards Loule, attempted to get through a very narrow village road in Pena and changed our mind. Mark reversed into a narrow side road, but then when he tried to go forward the road was just too steep and wonky, the front passenger wheel just wouldn’t grip and just spun round and round. We decided to dump the water that we’d got onboard in the hope that getting rid of some weight at the back would allow the front wheels to grip, but no such luck. In the end we decided to look for help! Found a couple of Portuguese men who didn’t speak any English. Luckily one of them had a 4WD vehicle with a winch and was able to tow us up and out of our predicament. It was a quite stressful!! We gave them some money for their trouble, without their help we’d still be there…

We drove on towards Loule stopping off at Querenca, which seemed to be very quiet and deserted. There didn’t seem to be much to it apart from a church and a couple of cafes/restaurants, so we took a couple of photos and carried on our way. We eventually arrived in Loule early evening, parked up and will wait until tomorrow until we take a proper look around. Luckily we’ve got some drinking water to keep us going until we can find some water tomorrow!

More of the Algarve

The next day we moved on to Sagres which is right at the South Westerly tip of Portugal. It was quite disappointing and we really didn’t understand why loads of motorhomers are parked up there. We moved on the next day, Thursday, unfortunately it didn’t stop raining all day.

We headed along the east coast and drove through several small coastal villages before stopping at Praia de Luz. Parking for motorhomes was banned from the seafront, so we parked in a quiet residential area just behind. We went for a walk down to the beach and into the town, calling in at the local supermarket that sold a good selection of British products at extortionate prices! The next day was overcast, but dry, we walked up through the town up to the cliff to the east and then back past lots of big villas overlooking the town with the coast in the distance.

Saturday was a lovely sunny day, we had a long walk along the coastal path to Burgau (a village to the west of Luz) passing quite a few walkers going the opposite way. It was lunchtime when we got to Burgau so we stopped for a toastie at a busy café (full of brits) overlooking the sea then walked back. After recovering from our walk we ambled down to the seafront at Luz late afternoon, which was quite bustling. Luz has been a really nice place to stay, but we’ve decided to move on to Lagos tomorrow.

On Sunday we filled up with water and headed 10-15 minutes down the coast to Lagos, went via a couple of supermarkets to stock up and then headed to the marina and parked up close by with about a dozen other motorhomes. Lagos is larger and busier than we like, so we doubt we’ll stay long. First impressions are that it’s nowhere near as nice as Luz! We have a bit of a wander around the old town, most places were closed as it’s Sunday. Early next morning we decide that we’ll move on from Lagos, so we head to the beach at Alvor and then outskirts of Portimao. By lunchtime we’d decided that this part of the Algarve is far too built up and not very attractive unless you‘re on the coast, so we headed inland to the mountains to the town of Monchique. It was only about a 40 minute drive from Portimao, but it could be a world away. The drive to Monchique was quite bendy and scenic. We parked up in next to the aerodrome which was recommended by the tourist office, a couple of German motorhomes joined us. We stayed in Monchique a couple of days. The weather was quite changable, mostly sunshine and showers with some hail storms thrown in!

On Wednesday we filled up with water and headed to Silves. Silves is nearer to the coast, but far enough away to not be over commercialed! It's a really nice old town with lots of cobbled streets and pavement cafes. We visited the castle which has some lovely views over the town and the rolling hills beyond. Whilst up high at the castle, we spotted several areas where large groups of motorhomes were parked, so later in the day moved to a large parking area near the river. We went out on Wednesday evening to a traditional Portuguese restaurant, pictured on the right (Mark had sardines and I had chicken piripiri) and some very nice Vino Verde (green wine). It's a Portuguese wine that is slightly sparkling and tastes a bit like champagne.

Thursday rained pretty much all day, although it stayed warm. Friday is dry and warm but overcast. We'll probably be moving on later today as we need to start our search for some gas before it runs out...

Onto the Algarve

Saturday was another lovely sunny day, we filled up with water then made our way to the campsite to use the launderette. We left the washing and then went to the market and supermarket. After lunch we drove out to a nearby port before returning to collect our nice clean washing.

Sunday was the warmest day we’ve had since Christmas, we went for a bike ride down to the harbour and then over to the other side of the estuary. The main road was luckily nice and wide and very quiet but quite hilly! We then turned off onto a country road down to the coast and continued cycling over a boarded walkway over the sand dunes. We stopped at lunchtime for a picnic in the sand dunes (picture to the right shows the view from our picnic spot) overlooking the estuary and Vila Nova de Milfontes. On returning to the motorhome we had a couple of cups of tea and recovered from our cycle ride, according to the sat nav we had cycled just over 11 miles! So we think we’ll be saddlesore tomorrow… Mark was looking a bit pink after being out in the midday sun! Inside the motorhome it was 30 degrees C, opening the sky lights soon cooled it down. Later in the afternoon we went on a short bike ride up to the lighthouse, chained up the bikes and went for a walk along the beach and into the sand dunes. As always, lovely views whichever way we looked. Picture to the right shows the view from the motorhome at sunset.

By Monday we decided to move on from Vila Nova de Milfontes, we drove about 20 minutes down the coast to Almograve and had an early lunch before starting off on a walk. We’d picked up a route map a couple of days earlier from the tourist office in Milfontes for a 5 mile walk. Although it wasn’t a very long walk, it was quite hard going as the majority of it was over sand dunes and beaches. We then drove onto Zambojeira do Mar, a small town on the coast for the night.

It rained heavily in the night and was very windy too! By mid morning it calmed down and it turned into quite a nice day, cloudier than recently but nice and mild. We left Zambojeira do Mar and headed down to the Algarve stopping for shopping en route finally stopping at Vila do Bispo (mostly because it’s got free wi-fi in the town centre!!) The wi-fi is a bit sporadic though, so apologies if I don't reply to all emails!

Back to the coast

Monday started as a chilly, dull, grey day and pretty much stayed like that all day! We decided to move back to Alcacer do Sal for a day or two as we didn‘t really like it at the barragem, so moved on after readjusting the satellite. We managed to get the UK channels we wanted at the barragem and tested the same settings when we got back to Alcacer, it still worked! We had perfect BBC, ITV, etc etc both sound and vision! But by the evening, unfortunately we had less luck, we could only receive the vision (in a very pixelated form) and hardly any sound. So we’ll try again in the morning to see if we have any luck. So we’re back to watching Portuguese TV through the analogue aerial, at least there’s a National Geographic program on everyday at 9pm for 45 minutes which keeps Mark happy! By Tuesday we manage to get sound and vision again after some more tweaking. It’s definitely not a case of being able to turn the TV on and it works… that would be a luxury! Even when we manage to get the TV working, we’re very limited to how much we can watch it at the moment as we have to rely on how much our leisure battery is charged. As we haven’t been driving much lately, we are solely reliant on the solar panel for energy, and as the sun hasn’t been shining much lately we don’t get much charge! Luckily the sun shone all day on Tuesday so we had quite a lot of charge for TV viewing in the evening.

Unfortunately on Wednesday morning we find that the gas is low a couple of days earlier than expected, so we can’t even boil the kettle for our breakfast cuppas as the flow is so slow! So we fill up with gas, water, food and head on our way through the Sado Estuary Nature Reserve, through loads of pine trees growing out of the sand (pine kernals are one of the main crops grown in the area, together with rice). Cork oak is also grown and along the way we see lots of trees which have been partially stripped of their bark for cork. We stop at Carrasqueira, an old fishing village with several traditional houses made out of rushes and wood, we have a bit of a wander round then head onto Troia, then Coasta de Santa Andre finally ending up at Sines late afternoon. Some parts of Sines are quite nice (the old town) but newer parts have quite a lot of graffiti. The next day is lovely and sunny and we go for another walk around the town, have lunch and then head on down the coast. Much of the coastline of Sines is industrial (power stations and petrol), but once a few miles down the road we entered the national park that stretches down to the western Algarve and the scenery was really beautiful. We drove past lots of secluded, unspoilt beaches until we reached Porto Covo, we parked up on the outskirts of the village along with 7 or 8 other motorhomes. We were up on cliff looking over to the Sines on our right and Porto Covo on our left. We then went for a long walk into the town then back along various beaches. Porto Covo is a traditional village with nearly house painted in traditional white and blue, it's nice, but doesn’t have a lot going on, so we‘ll be on our way tomorrow.

On Friday morning we drive just 20 minutes down the coast to Vila Nova de Milfontes, which is partly on the coast and partly on the estuary of the River Mira. It’s a medium sized town which is well kept and has a nice feel, so we’ll stay here a couple of days we expect. There‘s quite a few motorhomes parked up along the sea front (parking overnight is banned but it looks like no-one takes any notice of that!). We had a long wander round the town and visited both of the campsites in search of a launderette. One of the sites has a self-service launderette and will let non-campsite users use it, so we’ll be heading there tomorrow. The last couple of days have been lovely and sunny, so the solar panel has been working well for us. In the evening we walked into town and found a nice bar with wi-fi, so have been able to upload the blog!

It’s now 4 weeks since we arrived at Dover ready to set sail on Saturday 13 December 2008. So far we have driven nearly 1900 miles and have followed to route shown in yellow on the map below.

To the barragem and back...

It rained heavily in the night, but was brighter with the odd downpour during the day. We explored the town, walking up to the castle. Along the way we saw rice paddy fields, herons, stalks, huge cactus hedges and a community clothes washing area! Luckily we also found the local library which had internet access, so it was good to be able to catch up with emails, research and blog updating.
Thanks everyone for all your emails and messages, please keep them coming :-)


Later in the afternoon we invited our new friends over for a cuppa. For the first time we opened the habitation door (the door into the living area). Up until then we'd used the space by the door as a bit of a storage area, but thought we'd better be civilised and tidy up as we had visitors! Dennis and Kath gave us advice about a problem we have with our satellite dish and as a result Mark is going to try and get up on the roof and adjust the LNB tomorrow.

The next day (Sunday) is misty and quite cold early on, but by mid morning it was a lovely sunny day. Dennis and Kath popped over to say goodbye, we left soon after and go to a nearby barragem (dam) that they’d told us about. We went via the local supermarket then headed out into the country and arrived at the dam mid afternoon, by now the weather had turned a bit gloomy. There were quite a few motorhomes parked up, apparently some live at the dam all year round. There’s a restaurant and shower/toiler and water facilities (we took one look at the showers/toilets and quickly decided to keep using our own facilities!)

As we’d removed the ladder off the back of the motorhome to allow us to fit our bike rack, we had to be inventive and find a way for Mark to get on the roof. So we drove up alongside a large recycling bin and he climbed up using that. So with me in the motorhome watching the screen, Mark adjusted the LNB on the satellite dish. Due to moving so far south, the LNB needed to be moved by around 30 degrees. For the last couple of weeks we’ve only been able to receive a very small amount of TV channels (such as BBC News, Sky News, CNN, S4C, Radio 2 and 4 and BBC Parliament!!) So we were keen to do whatever we could to try and get more lighthearted entertainment. However we need to persevere and try again tomorrow. It appears that our dish may be a tad too small to pick up the channels we want whilst in Portugal and Southern Spain.

Rainy Portugal!

As luck would have it, we’d unknowingly parked right next to a water supply, so we filled up with water while we had the opportunity and continued on our way down the west coast, stopping at Ericeira for a few hours. We found a sandy parking spot on the north side of Ericeira where lots of surfers and body boarders were parked up (apparently the World Body Boarding championship is held in this area). We watched the surfers brave the high waves (you can just see 4 or 5 of the surfers on the pic) and walked along the coast (even paddling in the sea for a bit - it was a bit cold!) then walked towards the town. The scenery along the coast was beautiful, with very clean beaches. We then drove on slightly inland towards Sintra, another old town which has World Heritage status. For the first time we saw people pitched up on the side of the main road selling fruit and veg to passers by, we must have seen 7 or 8 different stalls. This area has a lot of stone walls which adds to the rustic scenery.

On arriving in Sintra we found a place to park up in a nice residential area close to the new town. We walked into the old town which was very picturesque and busy for a early Sunday evening. After wandering for a bit we found a place to eat with a set menu for 8 euros each which was quite good value for soup and bread, main course and a chocolate moose (the moose was a shop bought one in a plastic yogurt type container!!)

All day Monday it rained so we caught up on shopping and had a lazy day.

Tuesday morning looked a little brighter, we left Sintra and drove to Cabo da Roca which is the most western point in Europe. It was incredibly windy there! The national park around Sintra seems to be a popular place for cyclists, we saw loads between Sintra and Cabo da Roca. We then travelled on to Cascais, stopping on the way to see the Boca do Inferno (which means mouth of hell) which was basically a big arched rock that the sea flowed into. Cascais is quite a large town that seems to have quite a few 5 star hotels.

We found water, filled up, parked up, then went for a walk around the marina and around the old town. At the marina we saw loads of fish swimming close to the surface by the harbour wall. The next day was New Years Eve, it was raining. We needed to get provisions as it was likely the shops would be closed on New Years Day. The sat nav directed us to a large undercover Shopping Centre on the outskirts of Cascais, so we had a wander round, bought plenty of food, stopped for a coffee and then returned to the motorhome and onward to Lisbon.

We arrived in Lisbon early evening, slightly stressed due to the traffic! As usual Mark coped well with the driving, but Lisbon was the largest and busiest city that we’d encountered. We had set the sat nav to guide us to the Zooilogical Gardens and we luckily found some parking in a residential area close by. We decided to cook tea and then venture into Lisbon, but by the time we’d eaten it was raining and we decided to stay in. So we watched some Portuguese TV and saw in the New Year. On New Years Day it was drizzling, but we decided to try and get into the centre of Lisbon. We used the sat nav to guide us on our walk into the centre of the city, taking about 90 minutes. By the time we got into the centre it was pouring with rain and we got soaked! By then we’d discovered that Lisbon had a small underground system and used it to get back after exploring the centre for a while. Lisbon appeared to be a nice city, but unfortunately it was raining heavily and we were keen to move on whilst it was quiet on New Years Day. Luckily, although it was raining, it was very mild, so we were able to dry out reasonably quickly. We left Lisbon and travelled south a couple of hours to Alcacer do Sal which is a town on the river Sado.

The next morning we went for a wander and found a large parking area with water and another English motorhome parked up next to the river. We returned to the motorhome for lunch, then moved to the river area, filled up with water, had showers and gave the motorhome a good clean inside and out (you can just see our motorhome on the right of the picture). Whilst Mark was cleaning the outside of the motorhome he met one of our neighbours Dennis and we were invited for a cup of tea with his wife Kath. It was nice to spend a couple of hours chatting to some English people, they had been full timing in their motorhome for 4 and half years!