The beach at Albufeira

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The favorite route to old town was by the beach - an easy 15 or 20 minute walk - time to enjoy the sand and the sound and cool of the water. Nice. But it took us a bit of time to figure out that one needs to keep an eye on the tide behaviour. Failure to pay attention to the tide compounded by lack of respect for the power of the water got us into a bit of trouble on the way home one day. We misjudged the rate at which the waves come in and because we weren't quick enough to get out of the way, we ended up being swamped and knocked over by the water. A few scratches and scrapes but, fortunately, no serious personal damage and no damage to cameras. The next day we hunted up a tide table.

The photo of the Fishermans' beach taken from an overlook in old town shows an absence of fishing boats. This apparently is a change since Ruth was last here when there were a lot of colourful fishing boats and fishermen tending to their nets and gear here on the beach. All this has now been moved to an area to the west which is enclosed by a breakwater and effectively out of sight. Maybe it is an improvement in conditions for the fisherman and, if so, that's great. It does, however, eliminate one of the colourful scenes from this area of the beach.