Algarve West coast

What an amazing, amazing incredible day!! Today was one for the record books, this was an all outdoor day, very little visiting towns, mostly just admiring the beautiful shoreline and outdoors. If you like the Oregon Coast drive you would love this, if you like this coastal drive you would love the Oregon Coast!! I know the pictures will not do it justice, but we will give it a try. We started off with a sprinkle that we thought might get rain for the day, but about 10 minutes of about 25 raindrops and that is done for the day and we end up with beautiful sunshine for the rest of the day.

Started off this morning with a very cold sponge bath, couldn’t get any hot water in our lovely 30 Euro room, oh well we will just have to put up with each other for the day. Walked down the street to a little corner cafe and had a quick breakfast. Andre went up to the counter to order, I saw they had chocolate milk and white milk on the menu, so I asked Andre if they could make mine a hot chocolate. I heard him order but he `forgot` to ask for mine to be hot chocolate, oh well. Breakfast arrived and I had hot chocolate milk, and he had hot white milk, ha ha ha. 

Our 30 Euro room, Andre like the 4 poster bed!

Breakfast done and we head over to the fortress that is also in Sagres where we stayed last night. It was a 3.00 Euro entry fee each, and I am so glad we went in. There used to be a youth hostel on this site, but they took that down and have now made museums. We did not spend much time in the buildings just went around the grounds. There were so many cars in the parking lot, but we couldn’t figure out where everyone was, turns out they were mostly all fisherman, I think we only saw 2 other tourists in there. Again we saw fisherman standing on tiny ledges over these crazy cliffs. Lots of spots had just the pole sitting there, no fisherman around, we wondered if they come out the night before to save their spot, or what that was all about.

We walked around the entire perimeter of the fortress. We stopped so many times to take pictures and look at the views that it took us nearly 2 hours! The fortress sticks out on a peninsula so you get different views from either side. Lots of pretty little wild flowers here as well, we have read that February to May is wildflower season here, and we are seeing a few but have no idea what they are.

On the grounds they also have a huge compass rose and a lovely church.

Fortress in Sagres

Compass Rose inside fortress

Church inside fortress

Inside Church

Fisherman and saving spots

Next stop we went to Cabo de Sao Vicente, which in the middle ages was thought to be the end of the world. This is the most southwest point of Europe. There is a funny marker here with a bike on it showing km 0. This time you drive right out to the point, so it is basically just a photo op. A tour bus arrives while we are there, so we don't stick around too much longer.

KM 0 for biking starting from southwest Europe

Cape Saint Vincent - furthest southwest point in Europe

We stop at a grocery store to pick up stuff to make sandwiches and find a nice beach for a break. We picked Martinhal beach as I remembered seeing there were some roman ruins visible in the cliffs while we were at the castle. Andre found the ruins, it is amazing, they are not protected at all. You can really see how much erosion there has been over the many years when you see where these ruins are.

Roman Ruins

Roman Runs

From here we now just head along the coast and witness some of the most beautiful scenery on this earth I am sure. We have now turned the far corner of Portugal and are heading West. They have put a lot of work into this area as far as being able to get out of your car, walk along a boardwalk and feel safe. These boardwalks are also protecting the environment as we are all following along one path now, other places we have walked there are all kinds of little paths going every which way through the vegetation. We got off the main road and traveled a shore road, mostly paved, but it was dirt for a while. We saw very few cars and people, and like I keep saying the most amazing scenery. You could decide whether to look at the views from the top of the cliffs, or some had boardwalks leading down to the beaches. 

We chose to stop at one beach to watch some surfers, looked like they were having lots of fun. We probably spent nearly an hour on this beach just watching. They give surf lessons here, most of the little towns along this area all had surf shops, nothing that I expected to see here. Most of the people we see out surfing don't have the long boards like we saw in Hawaii, they are shorter like boogie boards, and the guys that are good get going around in circles as they are riding the waves in. We laughed a lot at 2 young guys that hardly made it out more than 12 feet, the breakers kept pushing them back to shore, but they still seemed to be having a great time.

So most of the afternoon was spent driving the roads between Vila do Bispo and Alejuzur, stopping and getting out to look around and take more pictures. We did a very nice shore loop around Carapateira.

Our final stop today is in Aljezur. This is a nice little town, with you guessed it has a castle. We are pretty much done for the day so tonight have booked in a hostel. Yep we are moving up in the world. Private rooms here are 40 Euro, the most we have paid yet for a night, but there is not much else here. We take a walk across to the other side of town, about 10 minutes, and we can see the castle on the top of the hill behind where the hostel is, oh my something to look forward to tomorrow, that is going to be quite a hike up!

Aljzur

Sunset over castle

Another one for Liam

We had supper at this fantastic restaurant right outside the hostel. This is the first restaurant that it is actually busy. We were the first ones there, we got there about 7PM, buy the time we left the about 12 tables were all full. People tend to eat very late here. I had the fish special, and Andre had the pork special, both were excellent. Mine was sole, I think maybe my favourite fish, and Andres pork was really good too. Along with wine and of course the little drinks they bring you after the meal. Tonight they brought us 2 little carafes of after dinner drinks, one of them I nearly spit out when I tried it, Andre told me it was firewater, the other was a sweet thing that I really liked (sherry), a little too much because I am afraid I may have a headache tomorrow. Good thing we basically step out of this restaurant and need to crawl up the stairs to the hostel.

Restaurant for supper