The Algarve, Portugal

December 2019

We hadn’t had a proper holiday all year. What with renovating the converted barn and then the holiday home, followed by 14 weeks of bookings until October, the year had flown past. In early December, Wendy suggested we look for a cheapie break over the Christmas period and I had found a week in the Algarve, Portugal from Christmas Eve until New Year’s Eve. I hadn’t been to Portugal since cycling around it in the winter of 1990 (apart from a Lisbon stop over on route to Venezuela in 1994) so thirty years later I was coming back.

We were flying from Bristol (a new airport for us) to Faro. The Ryan Air flight was at 7am which meant a 2am departure for the 3 hour drive. Wendy had pulled the ligaments in her knees and was on crutches. I had arranged for assistance onto the aeroplane. Once I had checked in a suitcase, we waited at the ‘Special Assistance’ area and eventually Wendy was given a wheelchair and we entered a restricted security area for hand luggage inspection.

It was only when we were being lifted up to the plane in a box with other disabled passengers that someone checked our passports and boarding passes. Then it dawned on me. When I had booked the holiday with ‘On the Beach’, I had given our married names and had forgotten that Wendy’s passport was still under her previous name. Her boarding pass did not match her passport.

‘You can’t fly with this discrepancy’ we were told. Oh s***. I guess I was out of practice with travelling. We were unceremoniously taken back down and wheeled back to the check in area to pick up our suitcase which was also unloaded. I was already thinking that we would sacrifice the holiday, drive home and just look for something else leaving on Boxing Day.

I looked at the departure board. Easy Jet’s flight to Faro had left at 0630 but I spotted two departures to Portugal. One to Porto at 10am and one to Lisbon at 3pm. At the Ryan Air desk, we had Wendy’s return boarding pass changed to her passport surname. They also said there were a few seats left on the Porto flight. I booked two one-way flights and we repeated the wheelchair security and were left airside.

The next problem was our car rental. We had one reserved at Faro airport at 10am for the flight we were no longer on. The car rental agency did not open until 08.30 but when we got through, I explained the situation. The car in Faro would only be held for two hours but this was cancelled with a full refund. I then reserved a car from Porto airport and another at Faro airport to be picked up by 9pm that night.

Sat at the back of the plane for the two-hour flight, I knew it was going to be a long day. Originally, we thought we would be driving an hour or so from Faro to arrive at the hotel for a lazy afternoon with a bottle of port. Now I would be driving at least 350 miles, most of the length of Portugal and still have the drive at the other end. At Porto, Wendy was unloaded and wheeled to the buses taking passengers to the car rental area. Our Avis car was waiting and off we drove with just my guidebook map of Portugal for directions.

I found the A1 motorway heading south to Lisbon. I had paid for a toll device in the car so that when we reached the tollgates, we just drove through the left lane and the toll price flashed up and it was recorded against your credit card. We had been up since 1am and I ploughed on south on a fast road which, once away from the busy Porto suburbs, was quite empty.

It was Christmas Eve and we knew the shops would be closed on Christmas Day. We pulled off at a town and found a supermarket to get in supplies of wine, port, snacks, road food etc. Around Santarem, the motorway split with options for the A1 to Lisbon and the A2 to The Algarve.

We were making good progress but once darkness fell, the journey seemed to take longer. After a petrol stop, it was the final slog to Faro airport and a top up of fuel. The airport was quiet. At the car rental area, I dropped off the Avis car and walked to the Europcar kiosk and waited an age until other passengers got their cars. I was given an unfamiliar model. The first issue was that there was no key for the ignition. I walked back to the kiosk. It was a press button start. The fob was just for locking the doors. Then I couldn’t find a handle for the boot. Back to the kiosk. The handle was hidden under an edge.

Finally, we were off and heading west on the A22 with more tolls. In the Algarve, there are no payment areas. Every car needs a remote toll device like the previous one. It was only half-way through the week that I realised that nothing was flashing up at the toll exit areas. When I called the rental company, they said the battery was probably flat and not to worry. I didn’t pay any tolls during the week helping with the £38 of tolls that I had racked up from Porto.

It was late and dark, and we didn’t know where our hotel was. Less than an hour from Faro, we drove into the city of Lagos which had a fabulous array of Xmas lights on the roundabouts and at the Cathedral area. I spotted a sign for Luz and headed along a narrow road into a virtually deserted town. Following my nose, I found the Hotel Luz Bay down a hill. It was just before 11pm but reception was open. It was not the best way to start a holiday and entirely my fault forgetting the passport issue, but it had been an adventure and we had made it, even if we were over 12 hours late.

Our suite was spacious with a bedroom, a lounge, bathroom, fridge and a TV with just Sky News as the English-speaking channel. We had half board. The breakfasts were excellent, but the evening meals were bland and repetitive. At least it was all help yourself so I had great portions.

On Christmas morning, the hotel complex was quite empty. There were two freezing swimming pools, plenty of sun loungers, beautiful flowering bushes and palm trees in tidy grounds. We went to check out Praia da Luz (‘Beach of the Light’) which was what our town was called. It was compact with 3500 locals and a scattering of tourists staying off season. The sandy beach had imposing sandy cliffs bordering the Atlantic Ocean. The Rough Guide had one sentence “5 kilometres west of Lagos, the mass of white chalets and villas that is the resort of Luz piles up behind a sweeping beach, set below towering cliffs.”

Wendy thought that she had heard of Praia Da Luz before and it suddenly clicked. This was the town where Madeleine McCann had been abducted in 2007. The ‘Luz Ocean Club’ where it happened was just up the road from our hotel.

Eyewitness Travel said “Enclosed by ranges of hills to the north, the Algarve has a climate, culture and scenery very different from the rest of Portugal. It’s stunning coastline and year-round mild weather, maintained y warm sea and air currents from nearby north Africa, make it one of the most popular holiday destinations in southern Europe.”

On Christmas Day afternoon, we drove the short distance to Sagres where with its wild and windswept cape, Cabo de Sao Vicente was considered by the Portuguese as the far limit of the world. In the 15th Century, Prince Henry the Navigator set up a school of navigation, gathering together the greatest astronomers and cartographers of his time. It was from here that Portugal started to explore the world by sea. His Fortaleza still stands as a massive bulk of walls. It was very windy, and a hang glider was hanging off the cliffs in spectacular fashion. In a nearby cove, surfers were attempting to find waves.

On the way back, we went to photograph the Christmas lights of Lagos which we had seen on the previous evening. The Cathedral was covered in them. Lagos is according to Rough Guide “one of the Algarve’s most attractive and historic towns. We visited or passed through during the week and found it’s old centre enclosed in mostly fourteenth century walls. It was the capital of the Algarve until an earthquake in 1775 when Faro took over. It also had great beaches.

During our week, we made excursions all over the Algarve and the rest of this report is some of the best things we saw.

Silves was the medieval residence and capital of Moorish kings. It has a good castle with a complete set of sandstone walls and a highly dramatic approach with the town’s three dark circuits of guarding walls gradually revealing themselves. The Cathedral (‘Se’) sat below the fortress. There were lots of cobbled lanes to explore.

Inland Algarve is still relatively undeveloped. The outstanding area is the Serra de Monchique, the highest (volcanic) mountain range in the south providing a natural northern border with cork, eucalyptus and chestnut trees, remote little villages and an old spa in Caldas de Monchique. The highest point is Fola at 902m (about 3000 ft). With great views we spotted patches of terraced fertile land in the valleys. The highly inflammable foreign Eucalyptus tree has led to many areas being ravished by fires and we saw many trees with scorch marks from previous outbreaks. We also saw where cork had been stripped from trunks and branches with very tidy incisions.

The town of Monchique at 1500 ft is famous for locally made furniture such as the distinctive x-shaped folding wooden chairs that supposedly date back to Roman times. Not that we could have carried one back on the plane. Heading west from Monchique on the N267 to Aljezur we climbed up to the 11th century Moorish castle with sweeping views over the valley and back towards the Serra de Monchique.

On one day we drove to the attractive old town of Estoi, 11km north of Faro which rises above its church and small main square. We didn’t see the Roman ruins nearly at Milreu because we were visiting an old school friend of Wendy called Angela and her husband Steve. Wendy hadn’t seen her in decades and their attractive holiday villa perched high in the hills above Estoi was now their retirement home. We were made very welcome and spent the day chatting, drinking wine and having lunch.

A curious attraction which I had seen before in Faro was the twin towered Baroque Igreja do Carmo or rather if you took a door to the right of its altar, it led to the sacristy where you buy a 2 Euro ticket to view the macabre ‘Capela dos Ossos’ (Chapel of Bones). Built in 1816, its walls were decorated with human bones disinterred from the adjacent monk’s cemetery which were mostly skulls and leg bones.

Unlike the southern stretches of the Algarve, the west coast is almost totally undeveloped because the coast is exposed to strong Atlantic winds and much of it has been a nature reserve since 1995 called the Parque Natural Da Costa Vicentia. The Romans called it the ‘Promontorium Sacrum’ (Sacred Promontory) also believing it was the end of the world. The powerful Atlantic Ocean waves have created long sandy beaches and carved deep caves into the cliffs and we spent a day pottering around. The ‘Praia da Bordeira’ was a spectacular beach with crashing surf, backed by giant dunes and an unsurfaced track took us along the coast with wooden walkways down to the cliff edges, more crashing waves and finally ended up at ‘Praia do Amado’, a fantastic broad sandy bay backed by low hills. Apart from the Serra de Monchique, this was the most scenic place we visited in the Algarve.

We enjoyed the relaxing week, lack of crowds and a very low-key Christmas period. Needless to say, the return journey back to Wales was very ordinary and we were back in time for a New Year’s Eve party at our neighbours.