A few weeks back my I took a short weekend break away in the Algarve. I'd taken my eldest son down there to meet with an old friend of his from England who was on holiday with his family in Albufeira. Now some of you will no doubt know Albufeira very well, having been there yourself on holiday, but for me, this was my first time there. (Well, that's not strictly true, but my first visit earlier in the summer doesn't count: It was a fleeting visit to drop someone off and I was in and out again within 5 minutes.)
I'll cut to the quick. Saturday morning, eight o'clock, and the sun was still hiding away behind the houses a little. Washed, fed and watered and by nine o'clock and we're motoring down the highway through a very foggy Alentejo. The sun was clearly trying it's hardest to shine and it's heat was lifting the moisture from the rain soaked Earth creating a magical blanket of dense rolling fog, drifting ominously across the carriageway. At some point between half nine and ten we stopped briefly to stretch our legs at the Grândola services. I was very much welcoming the relief from driving while my son was lavishing the chance to spend a euro in the Racing Car Games Machine. I think that any irony I may have displayed was completely lost on him! By the time we had resumed our journey the fog had lifted and the driving was much easier. We were in Albufeira by eleven fifteen and with only one wrong turning we managed to find the hotel and get easily parked. I swear that "extra" roundabout wasn't on Google Maps!
The lady at the hotel check-in desk informed us that our room wasn't ready yet, but that we could use the luggage room until it was. With the hold-all stashed away, we went off to find our friend's apartment and give these two 8 year old boys a massive surprise. Down the corridor we walked, counting the room numbers as we went, with the anticipation of meeting for the first time in over a year building up and up, until finally we reached room 110. I rang the bell. Footsteps could be heard from the other side of the door. The lock clicked, the door began to open, light from inside the room slipped out through the ever widening crack in the door illuminating the darker hallway.
"Uh. Hello."
"Hi," came my son's decidedly nonchalant reply.
What an anti-climax. From their reaction you'd have thought that they'd only been apart five minutes.
We spent the afternoon at first in the hotel pool. Although the sun had been shining all morning and had been hot enough to burn off the Alentejano fog, it was clearly not hot enough to heat up the pool. After half an hour the general consensus was that we'd had enough of the freezing cold pool and a walk to the beach to make sandcastles was a much better way to spend the afternoon. It took a while to get us all organised since there were eight of us altogether (my son, his friend plus two siblings and four adults, including myself) but eventually we found ourselves at the expansive and picturesque Praia Azul. The children spent the next couple of hours playing on the beach, running in and out of the surf, paddling in the shallow water and furtively designing sandcastles, dams, irrigation channels and other sandy creations.
That evening we hit The Strip in search of our evening meal. The Strip is a bazaar kind of place. It's like someone lifted up Skegness and placed it back down again in the middle of the Algarve. Admittedly there are no amusement arcades or chip shops, but the neon lights shine out in the sky, advertising all the wonderful places to eat, drink and be entertained. The road from the hotel led us out onto The Strip part way along, and so we walked down to the end and back again, finally settling into a restaurant called La Bamba offering a mix of both typical Portuguese and distinctly Italian food. The food was delicious and i must say, worth every last cent. With full bellies we retired back to the hotel, to put some very tired children to bed.
Sunday morning and the rain came. I caught the weather report on the television and the entire map of Portugal was covered in dark black clouds with little computer generated raindrops dripping from underneath them. Of course you didn't need to see the weather report to understand that the rain had come, but simply open the curtains! However, since it seemed that the rain was intent on continuing, and that we'd made plans to visit the Old Town today, there was nothing else to do but get our raincoats and brollies out and head off to explore.
I've been to old fishing villages in Cornwall before. And I've also been round the back streets of Blackpool too. Well the Old Town of Albufeira was a lot like both of those places at once! Ancient buildings left over from a bygone age of fishermen's tales mixed in with a splash of neon, highlighting the modern tourist tat-shops. The rain had eased off to a pleasant warm shower (nope, not drizzle!) and consequently was not spoilling our exploration of the winding back alleys with their multitudinous overcrowded habberdasheries. As we wandered around we stumbled across the beach, sporting an enormous sand sculpture which very curiously hadn't been washed away by the rain. Later we discovered a tunnel leading through the town wall onto a second smaller beach with a scattering of bars and restaurants along it's edge. All in all, the rain did little to spoil our walk, and although by lunchtime it had started to rain more heavily, we made our way back to the hotel feeling satisfied that we'd had a good experience of the town.
And sadly that was it. Lunch was eaten and it was time to get back into the car for the long drive north. We packed up our bags, said our goodbyes and made our way to the hotel reception to check out. The drive back home was uneventful, verging on the tedious, but seemed to go a little quicker northbound somehow. It had been a fun weekend for my son and I, but alas, our lives in the Lisboa suburbs awaited. Maybe next summer we'll take another trip down south with the whole family?
That evening we hit The Strip in search of our evening meal. The Strip is a bazaar kind of place. It's like someone lifted up Skegness and placed it back down again in the middle of the Algarve. Admittedly there are no amusement arcades or chip shops, but the neon lights shine out in the sky, advertising all the wonderful places to eat, drink and be entertained. The road from the hotel led us out onto The Strip part way along, and so we walked down to the end and back again, finally settling into a restaurant called La Bamba offering a mix of both typical Portuguese and distinctly Italian food. The food was delicious and i must say, worth every last cent. With full bellies we retired back to the hotel, to put some very tired children to bed.
Sunday morning and the rain came. I caught the weather report on the television and the entire map of Portugal was covered in dark black clouds with little computer generated raindrops dripping from underneath them. Of course you didn't need to see the weather report to understand that the rain had come, but simply open the curtains! However, since it seemed that the rain was intent on continuing, and that we'd made plans to visit the Old Town today, there was nothing else to do but get our raincoats and brollies out and head off to explore.
I've been to old fishing villages in Cornwall before. And I've also been round the back streets of Blackpool too. Well the Old Town of Albufeira was a lot like both of those places at once! Ancient buildings left over from a bygone age of fishermen's tales mixed in with a splash of neon, highlighting the modern tourist tat-shops. The rain had eased off to a pleasant warm shower (nope, not drizzle!) and consequently was not spoilling our exploration of the winding back alleys with their multitudinous overcrowded habberdasheries. As we wandered around we stumbled across the beach, sporting an enormous sand sculpture which very curiously hadn't been washed away by the rain. Later we discovered a tunnel leading through the town wall onto a second smaller beach with a scattering of bars and restaurants along it's edge. All in all, the rain did little to spoil our walk, and although by lunchtime it had started to rain more heavily, we made our way back to the hotel feeling satisfied that we'd had a good experience of the town.
And sadly that was it. Lunch was eaten and it was time to get back into the car for the long drive north. We packed up our bags, said our goodbyes and made our way to the hotel reception to check out. The drive back home was uneventful, verging on the tedious, but seemed to go a little quicker northbound somehow. It had been a fun weekend for my son and I, but alas, our lives in the Lisboa suburbs awaited. Maybe next summer we'll take another trip down south with the whole family?
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