Portimão/Praia da Rocha - Portugal 2014

No beach this morning - today is a bussing and exploring day. Left a bit before 8 am to catch the local Albufeira bus to get to the bus terminal where we boarded the Eva bus for Portimão to check it out along with nearby Praia da Rocha. The latter is apparently a well known beach town, attracting thousands of beach seekers every year. Portimão, said to be home to about 37,000 folks, is about 45 - 50 minutes from Albufeira by bus and we arrived there bearing a map provided by our JMV rep and prepared to explore. 

It was a beautiful sunny, pleasantly warm day - t-shirt and shorts for the middle of the day for me - and the bus deposited us immediately adjacent to the expansive promenade that extends for about a kilometre, or likely more, along the river Arade (Rio Arade). After getting organized and walking along the promenade (sorry, no photos) we decided that we would walk the stated 1.3 kilometres to Praia da Rocha. The question arose about which route to take - the one suggested on the map or the "wing it" route and, after some discussion, we decided to take a route the destination of which we had no idea. It took us by a decaying old Monastery of St. Francis and past a well guarded naval establishment (because it has a good sheltered harbour along the Rio Arade which empties into the nearby Atlantic ocean, it has been an important shipping and naval location as far back as the Phoenicians, Greeks, Carthaginians and the Romans, who knew Portimão as Portus Magnus) and onto a very walkable stone paved path. We met several walkers and bicyclers along the way so we grew increasingly confident that we would end up in Praia da Rocha, which we did but the walk was substantially longer than 1.3 Km. 

Praia da Rocha

Picture a very wide, pristine beach (see photo) rimmed by seemingly endless high rise apartments, hotels and/or condominiums.

Where the beach meets the non-beach there is an excellent boardwalk the length of which we know not because we didn't walk the full distance, but it would appear to continue to the extent of the beach. 

And along that boardwalk are cheek by jowl eating and drinking places all very organized and quite interestingly designed. 

Sorry, no photos of these places but we did have a very tasty crepe with chocolate and banana at one of them, and at that place we sat at some interesting tables, of which there is a photos.

At intervals along the main boardwalk there are mini-boardwalks extending perpendicularly toward the ocean.

Walkers on the breakwater

At one end of the beach, near the breakwater, there is a sand soccer area and a basketball court both seemingly equipped with lights for night play. If you look closely at the photo of the beach (the first photo at the top with rocks in front) you might be able to make out the sloping light standards that look a bit like billboards, which indeed they are, each sporting on the back a full size ad for something.

When we were ready to wend our way back to Portimão we were tiring so thought we would try to find the purported 1.3 Km route, only to find that we had lost our map somewhere along the way :-( So we had to wing it once more, again with success, but the walk was a bit more difficult and we felt, longer than 1.3 Km. When we arrived back in Portimão while looking for a cafe we passed this well preserved chimney stack, presumably from a long gone factory. On the top was a large stork nest with a stork sitting on the edge. Just as I was about to take this photo the stork retreated into the nest, so no stork for you to see - but trust me, there was a stork there.

After assuring ourselves where to get the bus home, we found a small outdoor restaurant where we had drinks (coffee and orange juice) and an expensive couvert (bread, black olives and a variety of cheeses and a couple of different patés. ) After we sat down and ordered a couple sat at the table next to us and the man was wearing a Tilley hat, so pretty certainly a Canadian. The Tilley hat triggered conversation and we discovered that they are from Mount Hope - only a few kilometres from Dundas!

After food and conversation, we walked a bit more of the promenade, picked up a pastry to stave off hunger on the way home and made our way to the bus stop.

I have refrained from mentioning that, at intervals along most of the promenade were some quite beautiful large stone sculptures, the products it seems, of recurring  contests over recent years. My hesitation in mentioning them is, I am sorry to say, that for reasons I don't understand, I took no photos of any of them. You would have liked them, but to see them you will need to visit Portimão yourself.