An Unplanned Year

We started the day in Seville getting the car out of the garage through an opening marginally larger than the car.

Then followed the labyrinth of tiny one way streets until we escaped the city and headed to Portugal. It was a bit of a cold rainy day.

Our first stop in Portugal was the town of Faro to see the Chapel of Bones in the Igreja do Carmo church. The chapel was when the Faro cemetery was full,  using the bones of over 1000 Carmelite monks, and was finished in 1816!

We then headed to Lagos (the Portuguese Lagos, not the Nigerian one) did some grocery shopping and found our accommodation. Settled in then went for a walk to the beach.

On our first full day we had booked to go kayaking to the Benagil Caves. It was rescheduled from yesterday due to the bad weather. We were dreading the cold water, but it actually wasn’t too bad. The sun came out whilst we were kayaking thankfully so we got to see some of the bright green waters. We paddled along the coast in both directions and looked at and entered a number of caves including a very dark one, a smuggler’s cave and the insta-famous one. You’re not allowed to land in any of the caves anymore. (Thanks wannabe “influencers”!)

(NB: Our selfie game is poor, and not a skill we’re looking to develop!)

One spot we saw was the original Windows default wallpaper!

And then the most famous cave.

Our guide was on a stand up paddleboard the entire time, at one point surfing on the wake of a passing boat!

The next day we drove to Portimão to start our search for snow chains. We booked a hotel in Andorra that didn’t specify before booking, that you must carry, and potentially use, snow chains from Sept – May. No luck, but will keep looking!

We then headed to Sagres to visit Fortaleza de Sagres, a fort that goes back to Prince Henry the Navigator in the 1400s. Lots of the drawings there were done by someone on Sir Frances Drake’s Armada ships. The fort was basically a wall across a peninsula, with the other sides of the fortress being 50m high cliffs!

There were multiple men fishing from the top of the cliffs. We did see a few fish caught!

We went to a local restaurant for lunch and shared a plate of Goose barnacles – percebes,  Portuguese delicacy. They were available but tricky to open and extract the bit you eat, but they were actually quite tasty!

We also shared a surf & turf with a giant tiger prawn on top. The picture shows half of it.

Was a pleasant day out today we end our time in the Algarve.