Portugal, early days,

The proof, to me, that we are now really here is that I was on the beach this morning before sunrise and I can say that it was rejuvenating. It was cool - 12° C - and fairly windy so the ocean was thunderously pounding the beach - a sound I thoroughly enjoy.

I spent only a short time there this morning as I was to meet John at 8 am for our regular 4Km morning walk, but I made a few photos just to reintroduce myself and you to one of my favourite morning and evening spots here in Albufeira.

This scene is, no doubt, familiar to all. Just to establish location :-)

Don't forget to click on photos to see a larger image.

I am also experimenting a bit with some long exposure photography, so if one or two of these photos appear blurry, they are.

Yesterday John and I went looking for a place that he wanted to find, and, including our morning walk and this project we walked a total of around 15 Km that day! And after finding the place in question we decided to walk home on the beach which, because of major changes the ocean has wrought, turned out to be more labor intensive than we had anticipated. More about the beach changes later.

The photo below shows part of the large breakwater they put in place a year of so ago and now beautifully covered with moss.

I think it is safe to say that we are all now quite settled in and accepting the many shortcomings of this new place, the Monica Isabel Beach Club. After a lot of disappointments, complaints and calls to the JM Vacations rep, Jean and John finally now have the basic equipment for cooking their meals. There are still some fairly basic kitchen items lacking but, though we would prefer not to, we can function without them. While the rooms we are in are spacious and quite nice, unfortunately this place is quite stingy with kitchen items (or maybe they are just disorganized) and they apparently have a reputation for poor management. So be it - we are here and happy to be so.

The cold front has moved in and this morning at 6:30 it is around 7 degrees C, and we are looking a mostly sun but high temperatures somewhat lower than usual - around 15° C each day for the next several - still much better than southern Ontario!

This photo was made last evening from the balcony outside our living room.