Portrical

We've had quite a winter this year. Lots of snow and vastly more cold weather than the last two. It made for a nice cozy Christmas but, by the new year, we were a bit taken with cabin fever. Thank goodness we "surprised" ourselves with a trip to Portugal. The Algarve region, on the south coast, semi-arid, sunny, warm (er than here), beaches and a heated pool!

After new year's day, we were all up without an alarm at 0500 ready to go! Thank goodness Sam and the girls had been out with hammers breaking all the ice around our car...

We left lovely England from John Lennon Airport in Liverpool and struggled out into the bright, warm Faro Portugal sun a few hours later. We literally felt the serotonin being made. The funny thing was that up until we walked out of the airport, the girls kept telling us: "We don't want to leave England! I don't like Portrical!" How that would change...

Our abode for the week was a wee cottage nestled in the hills about a half hour from the airport. Wee is probably not the most adequate descriptor for this place. It was gorgeous! We only had to share the hill with geckos and birds.

We did have a bit of rain, a couple of days. But, when we saw the weather in England on the news, snow storms and airport closings, we decided that this was fantastic! And it was 20 deg warmer than home... There were fish markets in every town, fantastic white wine and a wonderful little bistro run by a former South African paramilitary body guard and his friend. Great food and great people! It was newly opened and deserves to do well! Although the interior decor of busts of American Indian Chiefs was a bit out of place... We had a couple great traditional dishes there: Cataplana and Arroz do Marisco. Both full of fresh shellfish, fish and gambetas!  He also introduced us to the Algarve's Aguardente.  It roughly translates to "regional water" and it was fig brandy.  To say it could sear your palate clean would be an understatement.  You could eat the most pungent food known, take a sip of this and not have a single molecule of the food left.  It was served as a cordial following your meal. Muito Quente!

One of the girls' favorites was the playground outside of the Olhao fish market. Add some sun, salt and a little warmth and you get an amazing morning!

Besides relaxing on "our" hill, drinking Vinho Verde and eating fish, we made a couple day trips: one to Sevilla, Spain and one to Benagil (the most perfect cove beach that could possibly have been found in Portugal that day).

Sevilla was a really beautiful city. There were orange trees everywhere you looked, which is quite exotic to us now. We toured the Cathedral, which is the largest gothic cathedral in the world and saw the monument to Cristobal Columbo (Christopher Columbus to those of us who are hopelessly Anglicized), ornate gold work and a VAST sanctuary.

It even had its own orange grove!

After the cathedral, we strolled around the narrow streets of the Barrio Santa Cruz and the Alcazar gardens.

Met some locals and had lunch at a cafe under the oranges.  Much to the enjoyment of a few bellies... 

Such a very nice day!  We even caught sight of these two wild bulls who escaped from the Plaza de Toros!

After our day in Sevilla, we stopped through the Roman ruins of Italica on our way back to Portugal. Italica is about a dozen miles out of Sevilla and was the birthplace of the Roman Emperor Trajan and the boyhood home of Emperor Hadrian (who built the wall between England and Scotland).

It was really amazing to see the extent of the ruins and the beautiful mosaics which have survived the years. These were three of our favorites:

House of the Birds

Neptune's mosaic

Planetarium mosaic

Italica was also home to the 3rd largest Amphitheatre in the empire. Such fierocity!

Watch out for the Shades of the Gladiators!

We let the girls storm the old gladiator pits and managed to get their picture next to a statue of Diana (Artemis).

And in a weird discovery, learned that Sam and Trajan's birthdays are a mere couple days apart... don't mention it though, he may put the olive branches back in his hair...

It was a busy day but, well worth it.  After getting back to the house, we noticed something.  Is that a swimming pool??? Oh yeah, it was still winter and the pool was just a tad cool...



At least that was what we thought Sandy and Molly said...

So we decided to head out and find a lovely cove beach. We drove through a little village called Benagil that was supposed to have just what we wanted.  It was so tucked away that at first you couldn't tell there was a beach there. It just looked like a boat ramp with a small stream flowing out next to it.

We took a little peak around the rocks from the boat ramp and ....WOW!!!

We were it! First tracks on the beach and no wind! It was so fantastic. The girls played, Sam walked around on the rocks, we laid in the sun, Was this still January???

What a day. Absolutely perfect. An entire day of playing in the sand and chasing waves.  And we were warm!  Unbeatable.

It was soooo relaxing and peaceful.  It was probably one of the best beach trips we've had.

We had a few walks in the hills and the girls got to perfect the use of their new cameras...

From the top of a neighboring hill, you could nearly see Promontorium Sacrum (for the Romans, the end of the world, where the sun sank into the ocean every night) and had great views back over our house. As well as the local vineyards.

On one rainy day, he and the girls saw a rainbow and headed out to find the leprechauns' pot of gold. They ended up taking refuge from a deluge under some cork oak scrub.

Oh yeah, those are the trees that produce all the cork for wine bottles, thumb tack boards... the cork is the bark. It is stripped every 9 years. Take look at the picture. You can see where the bark was cut and pulled away. Amazing!

Another beautiful part of this area were the Azulejos. Painted tiles. They were in parks, on houses, inside churches, everywhere. And completely beautiful!

The vales around our place were full of waterfalls and citrus groves. It was a really nice place to wander around.

We strolled through Tavira one afternoon and had a lunch in a cafe where we met these cool locals.

Lucky us, we did manage to get their autographs.

But, we were only there for a week. And , after staring at that bright, burning star that is soooooo close to the planet Earth (who knew???), it was time to go home. We made it back to the airport and, oh my goodness, are all the UK flights cancelled due to horrible weather??? YES!!!  No, dang it, all but ours!!!! So, it was back to Liverpool. As we were boarding the plane, the girls both got very sad, dropped a couple tears and declared: "We love Portrical! We don't want to leave!"

We'll be thinking of the sun and beach for the a long time and now, when we talk about travelling, all the girls can say is: "Portrical!"  It's easy to see why.