I am writing this post from our terrace at our guest house in Lagos on the Algave. Lovely Portuguese jazz is playing compliments of Youtube. The sun is setting and the fronds of the palm trees opposite are ever so faintly stirring. We arrived here via a wonderful country drive through vast broad acre farms of wheat, olives, grapes and citrus. Along this road the storks had colonized the tops of so many electricity poles. The enormous birds stood as sentinels atop their nests and as it is spring, I was thinking they must be guarding either their eggs or their hatchlings.
It was a great run, especially as we finally worked out the navigation cast from John's I phone to the car display, AND we got apple play working. It was a cruisy, scenic drive with only the occasional warning from the rumble strip that we needed to re-centre. This was what happened when the scenery was so seductive.
As we approached Odemira, the hills were undulating gently and perched high on a nearby hill there was the most beautiful old windmill. In its time it had been used to mill the grains from the surrounding farms. Today it stood in elegant and stately retirement, looking across the valley.
Coffee break was at a roadside stop in Boa Vista dos Pinheiro. I was surprised at how many locals visited as well, in the middle of a workday. The Portuguese people had their priorities right.
We pressed on to Sagres and began to see signs that we were approaching the sea. The soil was a little sandy, and the vegetation became scrubby. Sagres was a surfer's paradise. The seafront had that make do beach hut appearance loved by surfers. We drove past the sandhills towards the fort built on the very edge of the cliffs above the surf coast. The fort loomed up imposingly. It was once a fortification but today it it had been turned over to a wonderful display of Portugal's navigational heritage. We were standing on the last bit of European landfall before the vast sea that washes up on American shores. It was raw and beautiful.
My mood of happiness came to a sudden end with a text message from Britt. "Did you guys leave anything behind in the room at Beja?' she asked gently. Apparently I had dropped a couple of credit cards behind when my phone case fell open. Bugger! Britt the angel fixer was on it... contacting the guest house to arrange pick up.. passing the task on to the Faux Import Team.. who contacted Fed Ex and arranged for the cards to be picked up and delivered to the Faux offices in Dubai.
Lunch at Sagres was on the front in a surfer joint called The Hangout. Just our kind of place. They did bruschetta and tattoos. It was a good spot but I think we stood out like a sore thumb.
From here it was a short drive to Lagos. Lagos was holiday central. It was a playground for people across the world. As we walked the streets, you could hear smatterings of so many different languages. Our guest house was a 15 minute walk to the seafront, in a very nice raised position. We had a lovely view from our room and an even better one from the terrace. We had a great view of the old town wall about 200 metres away and all the stylish villas in between.
We were show to our accommodation by the most fastidious of young woman, Mariana. Every feature was explained. The parking options were explained. The tourist points were explained...the meal recommendations were made. Yes she was thorough and she insisted on helping us to lug our stuff up to the second floor.
We dumped our bags and set out to get the lie of the land. The streets full of eateries and other shops tumbled down to the seafront, where a channel led boats back to the vast marina. We walked as far as the footbridge and then back through the laneways back up to our guest house.
Apparently our guest house is just down the road from The Rising Cock Party Hostel frequented by young Australians. Their pub crawls are legendary. We probably won't hear a thing as we are up quite high.
Dinner - what should we do? The terrace was lovely and we tossed around the idea of getting takeaway and staying in, but sense prevailed. We could stay in for chicken and chips any time, but sitting in a restaurant in Food Street was not something we can do next week. We stopped to read the menu in several places and finally decided on Ocean and Earth. A few days ago I casually mentioned I wouldn't mind a bowl of pasta and ever since, Johnny had been checking EVERY restaurant menu for pasta. Both Johnny's carbonara and the salmon pasta I had were terrific. I found myself listening for Aussie accents in the crowds of people that passed us. YES! the next table at the restaurant had two girls from Melbourne.
It was back to the guest house for coffee and choc bikkies and Joe Bonamassa. We had rediscovered him this afternoon as Apple Play shuffled all sorts of stuff on Johnny's phone. Venus was beaming down on us and the wonderful Algave landscape. Jeeze I'm lucky. Goodnight.
