All that Jazz and Churches

It’s Friday already, hard to believe we have been here 3 weeks tomorrow, that is half way through our Portugal adventures!

Today started off like any other work day here. Internet seems to be working great, Wendy worked for the morning with no issues at all.

At 11:00 we went to the square in town to meet up with a couple the first night we ate dinner out here, and hear a guy play the saxophone. His name was Johnny Hopper.  He was very good. It was nice to visit with other people and hear about their travels. They are booked to come back here again next year. After a long lunch Wendy headed back to finish up here days work and then we headed out to tour a little this afternoon to some towns that are not so far away.

Sax in Old town

The wind was up this morning. The surf and whitecaps were the biggest we have seen since we have been here.

Our first stop was at a town called Almancil. The only reason to visit this town is to see a Church. What an amazing Church this was. No pictures allowed inside so I’ll try to describe it. All of the walls and ceiling are completely covered in blue and white tiles, all painted by hand, by one painter in the 1730`s. It took this artist 20 years to complete. It was stunning. As people leave they close up the doors, I guess to try to preserve the painting on the tiles. The church images are all done in an homage to Saint Lorenzo, and if you knew his story you could follow the story along on the walls, unfortunately we don`t know the story, but still amazing to see.

Saint Lorenzo Church in Almancil

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Amazing Tiles in Church

From Almancil we drove to Loule. Loule is best know for its Saturday markets, but we knew we would not get here on a Saturday but decided to go for a visit since we were so close. This is a fairly big city, with a very nice old town. We parked our car, finally we are quite confident we have figured out parking meters in Portugal, and walked around Old Town. There is a castle in the city, surprise, surprise, did a quick visit here. Then walked down the pedestrian only street to visit a few shops. Lots of tiny alley ways and cobblestone streets intersecting each other, we love this. Visited the outside of a Church that has tower that dates from 13 century but it was not open this late in the day.

Market building in Loule

Pedestrian only street in Loule

Inside castle in Loule

Church inLoule

Castle Walls in Loule

Inside market building in Loule

archway to abandoned convent

Another thing that is interesting is the way they park here in Portugal.

Parking spots...

Following Loule we drove back to Albufeira as it was starting to get dark. We still avoid the toll roads, so we’re not thrilled about driving the windy roads in the dark. Got back home in time for Wendy to get her boarding pass for her flights next week to London printed off at an Internet cafe.

Decided to go out for supper tonight in Old Town. We broke down and went into a place that had asked us at least 30 times to come in, and it turned out to be very good. Free half bottle of wine, chicken kebabs and sea bass were our choices, very good. Now we can cross that restaurant off our list, he better not bother us any more on our walks. Problem is there are about 100 more restaurants in town that ask us every night to stop!

Getting ready to call it a night. Tomorrows plans are for Seville Spain if it calls for nice weather, if not we will do some more visiting around this area.