More from Portugal

Another brief note from Portugal with a few more photos.

I forgot to explain in the last post that the small "Supermercado" is not where we usually shop for our groceries - it is closer than the Modelo (the much larger super market) so we go there to pick up a few things like milk and juice. The bakery, however, is our main source of breads and yummy pastries - only a about 10 minutes from our home base.

The weather guessers continue to predict bad weather and, fortunately, they have been less than accurate. They predicted a big storm for today but, though it rained for a while this morning it has been dry and quite warm into the afternoon. We went for a long walk in rather windy but otherwise lovely mid morning - until about 1 pm.

We are beginning to rethink our plans - may not go to Evora after all. Ruth wants so continue practicing her drawing and painting so would prefer to stay in Albufeira. We will definitely go to Lisboa, though, March 9 to 11. Hotel reservations have been made and we will take the high speed train from Albufeira to Lisboa - they say it takes just over 2 hours so that should be interesting.

Had a couple of notes about the first post approving the documentary photos so have included a one more here - the 3 palms rotary at the end of the street adjacent to Club Oceano which is where we stay. The street to the left of the rotary leads to the bakery and the Modelo - the main supermarket in Albubeira - about a 15 minute walk from our place.

Next is a sunrise from our balcony followed by three beach shots - a couple of these have been seen by some in an email. The wind is with us again producing impressive spray. The last is tread impressions from the small tractor of the beach clean up crew.

First post from Albufeira - 2010

As usual, click on any image to see a slightly larger one.

Well, we have been here for a week and the weather has definitely been better than expected from the forecasts. It has been cooler than it was last year but we have had sun virtually every day and showers most days but for the most part they have not lasted long. Most impressive has been the amount of wind which has been with us virtually every day - at times very strong. The force of the wind has made the waves, even at low tide, sufficiently high that we have only once been able to get to old town via the beach. But, while cooler than last year, temperatures have at times been quite warm - we had 17 and 18 degrees C couple of days last week and yesterday and today are much more like last year. Today is sunny and warm and the wind has abated - shorts and t shirt weather. I was on the beach this morning at 6:40 am for a lovely sunrise. One photo taken this morning included here.
We are planning a two day trip to a small town, Evora, in the province of Alentejo, just north and west of Albufeira possibly next week, then a three day trip to Lisboa in early March so there will be more of interest for the blog after those trips.
In previous blog posts I included some "documentary" photos of places we frequent in Albufeira - a few more included here, just to give you a glimpse of where we are.
The first photo is from the beach this morning. The next is Johnny Hoopers Saxophone Bistro (we had dinner and entertainment there last year) which is on the way to my internet cafe. The third is the bakery (Padaria - Pão da Aldeira) and the mini mercado (market - actually called "SuperMercado"!), which are in the next two photos.
The last is one of the happy tourists, on the way home from "the Strip" - a bunch of tourist trap shops, restaurants, wine shops and the Internet Cafe.