Visit with Drew and Julia

Shell hunting

Plans are evolving and changing a bit. Thursday, day 1 after their arrival, Drew and Julia slept latish, catching up on a bit of sleep. After surfacing Drew went for a run in our part of Albufeira, just under 5 Km then, instead of Julia and Ruth going shopping we embarked on a city bus ride. We planned to stay on the bus through it's route until it returned to our place but a call for pit stop meant getting off the bus to visit the WC at the bus terminal. We were a bit more casual than we should have been with time and when we went back to get on our bus, it was gone! So we had a bit of a wait for it to return, used our "transfers" and resumed our bus trip around Albufeira.

Julia and sand castle with moat

On the city bus

Remember, click on the photos.

Then we went for lunch at one of the small pastelaria/coffee shops near our apartment. While waiting for our lunch Maria, our friend from Clube Oceano appeared! 

Hugs all round, a short but very enjoyable reunion visit with a bit of an update on the past year. And, we learned that the young woman working in that coffee shop is Maria's daughter! As we were eating lunch, Ana, our JM Vacationa rep, came by as well so we were able to organize our trips. Friday Drew and I to Lisbon and Sunday all of us on a day trip to the Western Algarve.

Stop for Lunch in Lisboa

Friday morning Drew and I met our bus at 6:45am and began our 3 hour ride to Lisboa. Our first stop was in Belem in the western part of Lisbon to see the Jeronimos Monastery (the "Pepper" Monastery - apparently built with the tax money derived from the import of pepper from the "spice islands" which the Portuguese found during their period of "Discoveries" (read "colonial expansion") during the 15th and 16th centuries.

Discoveries Monument- Belem

As I have mentioned in earlier blog posts on Lisboa, Portugal developed one of the first and most extensive and longest lasting empires during that period. Completion of the Monastery and Cathedral took over 70 years. The church was open so we spent some time inside where we took some photos and were impressed by the skills of those who, without the aid of power machines, had built such a marvellous structure. The Monastery is no longer occupied by monks but contains other things of interest that we were not able to see because of time constraints (time is the enemy on these kinds of tours).

On the top of the Justin elevator

We did nip across to get a closer look at the Monument to the Discoveries that was built in the late 20th century. A short bus trip took us to Belem Tower which, unfortunately was closed due to a workers' strike! Then on into central Lisboa where we were on our own for 3 hours. Lunch then a walk to the St. Justin elevator from the top of which one has a great view of the old city and the harbour. On to Augusta St., one of the main pedestrianized shopping and outdoor eating streets, then through the triumphal arch onto the large Praça Commercio. 

From the top of the Justin elevator

From there we walked to the Alfama, the Moorish area (relatively spared by the great earthquake of 1755 which destroyed about 70% of Lisbon), a maze of narrow winding up and down streets in which one can easily become lost.

Church of St. Vincent

In the Alfama we happened by the Church of St. Vincent, where someone was filming a movie (there were police everywhere!) and from there we went to an area that I knew well and had a quick look at the National Pantheon. By this time our enemy, time, was threatening so we had to begin to try to find our way back to the bus meeting area - which we did with about 2 minutes to spare. Then, 3 tiring hours on the bus back to Albufeira

Julia and Ruth went early in the morning on the bus to the Modelo, the closest "shopping centre", to buy a book or two and craft supplies and then walked back to the apartment where they spent the rest of the day doing crafts, reading, writing and drawing Julia's book and occasionally going up and down on the "evalalator" which Julia thoroughly enjoys! Friday evening when Drew and I returned both Julia and Ruth announced that they had had a very good day.

Much more, especially photos, to come.

Sand castle by Drew and Julia