Portugal (Algarve) We fancied a bit of winter sunshine, but also fancied trying somewhere other than our usual Canary Islands default destination. So we thought we'd give HPB's Rocha Brava Resort in Portugal's Algarve a go.
Gatwick Saturday - Up at 3am (!) for what was supposed to be a 7am flight. However, our pilot was unhappy with our plane and requested a replacement, which delayed us by nearly two hours. This is a photo of our replacement plane that I took while we were waiting to board.
Portugal A view of the Portuguese coast as we were coming in to land. Our pilot must have been giving it full beans on the way there as we only arrived in Faro 50 minutes late.
Fiat 500c We'd booked a "Mini Convertible or similar", but Hertz supplied this pale red Fiat 500c. To my mind this is a normal car with a panoramic sunroof, not a convertible. Still, it was pleasant enough and the roof configuration meant that it could be opened and closed at any speed, which was quite handy. 69 horse powers is not enough horse powers though.
Apartment We picked up the keys to our apartment and unloaded our luggage before heading out for a late lunch and a bit of a look around.
Alfanzina Lighthouse A few minutes walk from the resort is the Alfanzina Lighthouse.
Coastal Path There's a path that runs for many miles in each direction from here. It's super scenic, but rather challenging in places and therefore best not tackled in flip flops or sandals.Here's Judith on the path with the Alfanzina Lighthouse in the background.
Cliffs The cliffs along this section of coast are spectacular.
Seagull Lots of seagulls around.
Boat There are boat trips all along this section of coast to the sea caves at Benagil. You can apparently swim to them, but it is not recommended.
Cliffs
Sunset (nearly) A view of the approaching sunset from the valley at the bottom of our resort.
Praia de Vale Centeanes We decided to drive down to the Praia de Vale Centeanes to watch the sunset (because we'd not worked out yet that it was only two thirds of a mile to walk).Not a bad first day at all.
Alfanzina Lighthouse Sunday - I woke up about fifteen minutes before the scheduled sunrise, so I thought I'd jump in the car and pop down to the lighthouse to see if there were any photo opportunities. (There was no chance of Judith accompanying me at this time of the day.)
Praia do Vale Espinhaco Sunrise I arrived slightly too late to see the sun appear over the horizon, but it was still a pretty good view.
Sinkhole The coast is littered with these sinkholes, which the authorities have considerately built fences around to make it harder to accedentally fall into one.Apparently rainwater disolves the limestone, creating a well, which eventually gets down to the sea level where it meets up with sea caves eroded by the tides. So basically this hole is as deep as the cliff is high (in this case about 150 feet) and you can hear the sound of the waves coming from it.
Praia do Vale Espinhaco A panorama taken with my phone.
Praia do Vale Espinhaco A HDR taken with my Panasonic camera.
Apartment I headed back to the apartment to meet up with Judith and head out for some breakfast. This is what our apartment looks like from the outside. That's the back on the right, so our terrace is out of sight on the left.
Algar Seco After a nice breakfast in the resort's Coffee Shop (that's what it's actually called), we walked the mile-and-a-half or so to Algar Seco, where there are some impressive cliffs and caves.
Algar Seco The sea is behind where those people are standing and the wave crash in through the hole underneath them.
Carvoeiro Boardwalk Algar Seco is also where the eastern end of the Carvoeiro Boardwalk starts, so we decided to take a stroll down there to the town of Carvoeiro.
Praia de Carvoeiro And here's their beach with some of the town visible in the background.
Praia de Carvoeiro Down on the beach.
Restaurante Bar O Barco It wasn't that long since we'd had breakfast, so we weren't really ready for lunch yet. So we stopped for a beer before heading home.
Ermida de Nossa Senhora da Encarnação At the western end of the boardwalk is the Ermida de Nossa Senhora da Encarnação, which is basically a small church.
Carvoeiro Boardwalk Heading back down the boardwalk.
Trail Markers The cliff trail is very well marked, which is just as well as in places there are paths going off every which way. Plus you don't want to stray too close to the cliffs as they have a tendency to periodically collapse into the sea.This marker means well done, you're on the trail.
Trail Markers This is turn right (if you're approaching from the left) or turn left (if you're approaching from the right.
Trail Markers And this means you're going the wrong way, even if this does look like a viable trail. All very well done though.
Praia de Vale Covo Remember that earlier I mention the sea caves that join up with the sinkholes. Well, as you can see here, some of the sea caves are epic in their proportions.
Praia de Vale Covo This photo was taken standing pretty much directly on top of the sea cave seen in the previous photo. The hotel is the Tivoli, which looked very nice indeed.
Praia de Vale Centeanes A short while later I reached the Praia de Vale Centeanes, which is where we watched the sunset the previous evening.A while later we made it back to our apartment. As it was still only late afternoon we decided to head out in the car to do a bit more sightseeing.
Igreja de Nossa Senhora da Rocha We drove to the Nossa Senhora da Rocha, which is a finger of rock maybe 60 feet wide that reaches out a hundred yards or so into the sea. This small church is built on it.
Igreja de Nossa Senhora da Rocha Inside the church is this slightly disturbing statue of the Virgin Mary and the baby Jesus, who has an uncanny resemblance (I think) to a young Steve Davis (the snooker player). Weird.
Praia Nova There's another super beach (Praia Nova) visible to the west of Nossa Senhora da Rocha.
Sunset We went back to our apartment, where I dropped Judith off, before heading out onto the coast path to watch the sunset.
Sunset
Fortaleza de Sagres Monday - We decided to get our longest day trip of the week in early and headed for the south western most tip of continental Europe. However, a few miles before we got there we stopped off to have a look at the Fortaleza de Sagres.It's supposed to be a fortress, but what they've actually done is built a wall across the end of a bit of land that sticks out into the sea, which seems like a bit of a swizz as it gives you not many places to hide if you're being shot at.This photo is approaching the entrance.
Fortaleza de Sagres This is the inside of the entrance.
Fortaleza de Sagres This is Judith on the ramp to the top of the building you can see in the previous photo.
Fortaleza de Sagres Some canons. Curiously the canons on the left are smaller than the ones on the right. They don't just look smaller because they're further away. Although they are also further away.
Fortaleza de Sagres Judith on the wall. The lighthouse at Cabo de São Vicente is visible in the distance. That's the south western most point of continental Europe, where we'll be going later.
Praia do Tonel This is the beach visible to the west of Fortaleza de Sagres. Good waves, which would explain why there were so many surfers.
Danger! There were lots of these signs up warning people to stay on the path and away from the cliffs.
A Voz Do Mar This looks like a lighthouse, but it might also be a museum. I didn't try to go in so I can't be sure.
Sinkhole A very big sinkhole. This one was maybe 50 feet across and a couple of hundred feet deep.
Sculpture? I'm not sure what this was supposed to be. From the outside it looked like there would be a good view from the middle/top, but when you walked in the ground in the middle was at the same level as the ground on the outside so you couldn't see anything at all.
Sculpture? Here's Judith navigating her way to the middle.
Cape Sagres Viewpoint Here's me at the Cape Sagres Viewpoint.
Cape Sagres View We headed back to the car and continued our journey to the end of Europe.
Lighthouse of Cabo de São Vicente When we got there, it turned out that the end of Europe was closed for maintenance, which was a bit disappointing. So I took this photo through the bars of their gate.
Lighthouse of Cabo de São Vicente I walked a couple of hundred yards along the clifftop to get this nice photo of the lighthouse perched on the cliffs.
Fishermen There were fishermen in implausible locations everywhere we went along the coast. These looked to be in a particularly precarious spot.
Fishermen Zoomed out a bit, can you still see them? They're about half way down toward the right of the photo. Bonkers.
Artesanato a Mo Our Fiat outside a nearby pottery, which was closed for lunch for three hours. So we pressed on for a bit up the western coast of Portugal...
Praia da Cordoama ...to the magnificent beach of Praia da Cordoama, which was almost as windy as it was deserted. Judith is just visible in the foreground.
Praia da Cordoama There were some impressive rock formations on the beach.
Praia da Cordoama HDR shot almost directly into the sun, looking south down the beach.
Praia da Cordoama Looking north. You can just see Judith in the distance.
Praia da Cordoama Some random people walking down the beach in black and white.
Praia da Cordoama Same photo as previous but in colour. I think I prefer the black and white one.
Praia da Cordoama There were quite a few paragliders around. They certainly had the wind for that sort of thing. Again, a tricky photo almost directly into the sun, which is why the colours look a bit washed out.
Portimao Bridge Eventually we had to leave the super Praia da Cordoama and head home, which took us over the not very imaginitively named Portimao Bridge. Judith failed to take a photo of the bridge, but did manage to take a short video. This is a screenshot from that video, which is why it looks a bit low resolution.
Quinta Dos Vales - Wine Estate On the way home we noticed that we weren't very far from the Quinta Dos Vales Wine Estate, so we thought we'd be as well to pop in for a look.Judith had a go at their wine tasting, whilst I had to abstain as I was driving. Which turned out to be just as well as the "tasting" turned out to be three medium sized glasses of wine that would have definitely rendered me incapable of driving.
Quinta Dos Vales - Wine Estate In addition to the winery, the estate is famous for its sculpture park, much of which is for sale. Although you'd need to have deep, deep pockets to be able to afford most of the items for sale.
Quinta Dos Vales - Wine Estate A red man on top of a tall plinth.
Quinta Dos Vales - Wine Estate Not sure what these are, but there were a lot of them around.
Quinta Dos Vales - Wine Estate I quite liked this one.
Quinta Dos Vales - Wine Estate Judith quite liked this one.
Quinta Dos Vales - Wine Estate And this one was not for sale as it's part of the owner's private collection.After that interesting diversion it was now time to head home.
Super Bock Time for a Super Bock on our terrace before heading out for dinner.As far as I can tell there are only two "beers" (by which I mean "lagers") on sale in Portugal - Super Bock and Sagres. Clearly the micro-brewery revolution hasn't made it this far south yet.
Restaurante O Júlio We walked to the nearby Restaurante O Julio for dinner. It was a good job we arrived early as it quickly filled up. We had an excellent dinner and I had possibly the best cheesecake I've ever eaten for dessert.A super way to end the day.
Silves Tuesday - We drove to the town of Silves to see what was what there. This big sign/sculpture in their car park lets you know that you're definitely in the right place.
Silves Judith in the narrow streets of the old town.
Castelo de Silves By far the most popular attraction in Silves is their castle. Apparently it was a derelict ruin until the 1930s, when they started to renovate it. They're done a jolly good job.
Castelo de Silves Judith on the castle wall.
Castelo de Silves View A view from the castle wall.
Storks In this region of Portugal there are loads and loads and loads of storks. They nest on virtually any sort of pole, post or tower. Here you can see three nests on the ruins of a building.
Castelo de Silves
Knight Judith with a massive statue of a knight outside the castle. I can't remember who he is/was.
Storks More storks.
Storks Their nests are rather substantial affairs. You wouldn't want to wake up to find one of those on your rotary washing line.
Door An interesting door to add to my collection of interesting door photographs.
Mercado Municipal de Silves This is the town's market hall. A very good place to go to get fresh fish, fruit and veg.
Serra de Monchique After leaving Silves we headed for the Serra de Monchique, which is the highest point in the Algarve. As is often the way of these things, the military had nabbed the very highest bit for their own purposes.
Serra de Monchique View Even though it was rather hazy, the view was still pretty good. I imagine it's awesome on a clear day.We had lunch in the restaurant at the top before heading off.
Barragem de Odelouca (Dam) On the way back to the coast we saw signs for a dam. As dams are often very interesting we thought we'd go and have a look. This is the dam as seen fron the Parque Da Barragem De Odelouca, which is about as close as you can actually get to it, which was a bit disappointing.
Portimao Bridge (again) On the way home we drove over the Portimao Bridge again and Judith was ready with her camera app this time so we got a full resolution photo this time. Yay!
Aparthotel Colina Col This is the Aparthotel Colina Col at Praia de Vale Centeanes, looking imposing and impressive in the golden pre-sunset light.We'd decided to pop down to the Praia de Vale Centeanes again to watch the sunset.
Praia de Vale Centeanes Waiting for sunset.
Praia de Vale Centeanes Although the glass says "Tagus", the barman poured it from a pump that said "Sagres". Belgians would be furious.
Praia de Vale Centeanes A completely cloud free sunset.
Praia de Vale Centeanes Still awesome though.
Praia de Vale Centeanes Wednesday - I was up early and back at Praia de Vale Centeanes for a walk while I waited for Judith to get up.
Coast Path From Praia de Vale Centeanes, I walked along the coast path...
Alfanzina Lighthouse ...to the Alfanzina Lighthouse before heading home.
Praia do Vale Espinhaço After breakfast we decided to walk from Rocha Brava, east along the coast to Benagil as we'd not been along that bit yet. Here's Judith on the coastal path.
Praia do Vale Espinhaco
Alfanzina Lighthouse A photo of Judith taken with the "portrait" mode on my phone to make the background go blurry.
Alfanzina Lighthouse A more conventional photo of Judith taken with my actual camera.
Cliffs Spectacular coast. The bit on the left that has become almost completely detatched from the land...
Sea Cave ...appears to have a sea cave that passes right through it!
Flower A pretty flower on the coast path.
Flowers Two pretty flowers on the coast path.
Praia do Carvalho After about half an hour we arrived at Praia do Carvalho. You can only get down to the beach through a short tunnel cut into the cliff.
Praia do Carvalho A wider angle photo showing the super beach.
Praia de Benagil A while later we arrived at Praia de Benagil, which did at least have an associated small village with a bar/cafe next to the beach. So we stopped there for a drink.What you can't see in this photo is that it was really quite windy out.
Rocha Brava Pool We retraced our path back to our apartment. Although the pool looks very inviting in this photo, it's not heated and it was far too cool out for that sort of thing.
Praia de Carvoeiro While Judith settled in on our terrace to read a book, I headed off for a walk. I took an inland route to Carvoeiro (here's there lovely beach)...
Carvoeiro Boardwalk ...before heading back along the coastal path. Here's the boardwalk.
Praia de Vale Covo And here's the massive sea cave at Praia de Vale Covo. If you look carefully towards the bottom left, there are two people on the beach, which gives the cave a bit of scale.
Praia de Vale Centeanes As was becoming a bit of a routine, we walked down to Praia de Vale Centeanes to watch the sunset.
Alfanzina Lighthouse I woke up very early and, in a fit of enthusiasm, decided to go out and try to take some star photos. The first thing that became rapidly apparent is that right next to a lighthouse is a rubbish place to try to take photos of stars.
Alfanzina Lighthouse To compound my issues, the sky completely clouded over in the space of about two minutes.
Algar Seco As I was out and had the car with me, I drove to Algar Seco hoping that the sky might clear while I was driving there. No such luck.
Praia de Vale Centeanes Then I drove to Praia de Vale Centeanes, which at least was atmospheric, with the glow from Carvoeiro in the distance.Time to accept that I'd been thwarted and go and get some sleep.
Alvor Boardwalk Thursday - We decided to go and have a walk on the Alvor Boardwalk, which passes through allegedly wildlife rich dunes.
Alvor Boardwalk We saw pretty much no wildlife at all other than a few small birds. But it was still a nice walk and very flat, which pleased Judith.
Alvor Boardwalk
Restinga On the way back to the car we passed this restaurant just set back slightly from the beach. We popped in for a drink, but decided to stay for lunch as it seemed to be quite a popular place. Very nice it was too.
Praia do Alvor Poente Judith on the beach after lunch.
Autódromo Internacional do Algarve We noticed that it wasn't far to the Autódromo Internacional do Algarve, so thought we'd pop in for a look. There was some testing going on and we got occasional glimpses of various touring cars on the track, but they'd gone to quite a lot of effort ot make sure that you couldn't get a good look at anything on the inside from the outside.
Kartódromo Internacional do Algarve So we drove the short distance to the Kartódromo Internacional do Algarve, where we had a drink in their deserted cafe.
Kartódromo Internacional do Algarve There was a great view of the cart track from the cafe. A deserted cart track seemed too good an opportunity to pass...
Kartódromo Internacional do Algarve ...so I booked myself in for a 15 minute session and got a track all to myself. Judith took this photo of me missing the apex of the corner.After this excitement we headed home.In the evening we walked to Carvoeiro, where we had a most excellent curry in the Gurkha Kitchen restaurant (with a load of other British people). You can tell there are a lot of British people around Carvoeiro as I counted at least eight curry restaurants in the town!
Rocha da Pena Friday - Our last full day so it was my last opportunity to get out and do a "proper" walk. It took nearly an hour to drive to the Rocha da Pena, which is a 500-foot-or-so high escarpment.Judith had no desire to walk up the escarpment, but joined me on the first bit of the walk to a bar, where she entertained herself for an hour.
Rocha da Pena View Approaching the top of the escarpment.
Rocha da Pena The view from the north viewpoint.
Trail Great trail markers here too.
Rocha da Pena View A view to the south.
Flower
Rocha da Pena View Another view to the south.
Iron Age Defensive Wall (remains) I got briefly "lost" here as it appeared that the trail followed the remains of the wall, when, if I'd taken a moment to look behind me, I'd have seen the trail marker showing that I should be walking in the other direction. Doh!
Judith From the trig marker on the top of the escarpment I could see Judith walking back to the car.
Judith I texted and waved, but she seemed unable to spot me. Zoomed out a bit you can sort of see why as she was quite a long way off and I was only really able to see her because she was standing on the "road".
Penina Door On my way back to the car I walked through the tiny village of Penina, where I saw this interesting door to add to my collection.
Stairs to Praia da Marinha Having met back up with Judith, on our way home we decided to go and have a look at the Praia da Marinha, which was allegedly voted as one of the ten most scenic beaches in the world in 2015 (although the thing I read didn't say who was doing the voting).Here's Judith on the stairs down to the beach.
Praia da Marinha Tricky shot into the sun, which is not really doing the beach justice.
Praia da Marinha It was slightly easier taking photos in the opposite direction.
Praia da Marinha From the top of the cliffs there was a better view of the beach.Judith decided to drive the car home while I walked back along the coastal path.
Arco Natural Like Durdle Door on the Jurassic Coast, but with two holes!
Algar de Benagil This is where all of the tourist boats had been coming to. Somewhere under there is a massive sea cave. If you want to see what it looks like, try Googling "benagil cave". We'll maybe have to do a trip in there the next time we're here.
Benagil Fishermen's Cottages
Alfanzina Lighthouse Approaching the Alfanzina Lighthouse.
Super Bock Finally finished my six pack of Super Bock.
Sparrow A sparrow on our terrace looking for Pringles crumbs.
Praia de Vale Centeanes As it was our last evening, we felt compelled to have one last walk to Praia de Vale Centeanes to watch the sunset.
Praia de Vale Centeanes It had been pretty cloudy for much of the day so we didn't have too much hope.
Praia de Vale Centeanes Then about ten minutes before sunset the sun popped out from behind the clouds and got our hopes up.
Praia de Vale Centeanes It looked fabulous for about three minutes until the sun descended into another bank of cloud and our last Portuguese sunset fizzled out to nothing. Doh!
Faro View Saturday - Up early-ish for the drive to Faro airport. Our departure was delayed for about 45 minutes due to fog at Gatwick!We got a nice view of Faro as we got underway.
Parque Natural do Vale do Guadiana There look to be loads and loads of trails and roads down there. That looks like it would be a magnificent location for hiking and biking.
Parque Nacional de Los Picos de Europa There was still snow on the mountains in the Parque Nacional de Los Picos de Europa in northern Spain.
Spanish Coast Shortly after we passed the Spanish coast the views were lost to cloud, which never broke for the rest of the journey home.
Praia do Vale Espinhaco Sunrise And so ended our holiday to the Algarve. I've finished with a reprise of the photo of the sunrise from day 2 as it seems a much better way to end than a photo of overcast Gatwick.We had a brilliant time and will definitely try to visit the region again.For reference, we drove 402 miles at an average of 50.5mpg, which didn't seem bad for a petrol powered car (even one with only 69hp that probably weighs only slightly more than my mountain bike).