Portugals Algarve
and Comares in Spain
story and photos
by Fred Nagy
Europe has long been a favourite destination for us, both having
been born there, but we had never visited the South-West corner
- Portugal and Spain - so last year was the year. We flew to
Lisbon and picked up our rental car since we had planned to
be doing quite a bit of driving around. Stepping out of the
airport, the first thing to get your attention is the heat.
In July the country is hot and dry, though around Lisbon the
vegetation was still green if not lush, with cacti growing everywhere
too and the occasional palm.
On the drive down from Lisbon towards the Algarve it gets hotter,
drier and browner. There are large stretches of 'savannah' and
frequent stands of very interesting-looking umbrella pine trees
(Pinus Pinea, producer of those delicious pine nuts). It would
not take too much imagination to believe that you were in the
Serengeti in the dry season and that that collection of yellow-brown
lumps in the distance beneath the umbrella tree was a pride
of lions taking a siesta during the hot mid-day sun! In brief,
here is my most important piece of advice: do not go to Southern
Portugal or Spain in the middle of summer - you will fry. The
best times to visit are the shoulder seasons: April-May or September-October.
The
Algarve has about 200 miles of seafront and boasts several dozen
beaches, large and small, some very picturesque. About half
of that length have well-built up tourist destinations from
Sagres in the west to Tavira in the east, with most of the action
centering on Albufeira and Lagos. We stayed for one week just
outside Albufeira at a self-catering time-share exchange resort:
The Balaia Golf Village, www.balaiagolfvillage.com
very nice but expensive, unless you have a time-share week
or two to exchange as we do. Albufeira is just one, although
important, tourist town on the Algarve. A typical tourist town,
it is still pretty, with a very nice big beach and lots of authentic
restaurants to choose from. A must-visit restaurant in Albufeira
is O Penedo, at #15 rua Latino Coelho. Set high on a bluff on
the west side of town it has the obligatory outside terrace,
but this one has an outstanding view of the town and the beach
below
a very romantic setting. The food was local, excellent
and not expensive.
By contrast, if you want to listen to the typical Portuguese
music - Fado - then right in the middle of town, next to the
tunnel leading down to the beach, is the restaurant Atrium at
20, rua 5 de Outubro street, located in the old Albufeira Theatre
Hall. Fado is performed there three times a week. The 5th of
October Street is the main drag in town connecting the beach,
via a tunnel, with the upper town's central square. The street
is jammed with wall-to-wall restaurants, tourist shops, street
vendors and tourists, all having a ball. However, all the restaurants
are pretty much the same, with the same set food and very similar
prices: 7-15 for main courses (1 = approx. C$1.55), with the
exception of shellfish, which is very expensive. For quality
and price these prices can't be beaten. The main square has
a fountain, lots of shade and seats for relaxing and people
watching. Cops ride around on bicycles in the warren of tiny
side streets where old Albufeira still exists - do visit, especially
to see the unique doors.
The
famous "Cock of Barcelo" with its huge comb and wattles,
can be found everywhere - as stand-alone figurines, on dinnerware,
and on beautiful blue tiles. The Cock has become synonymous
with Portugal and, of course, there's a story behind him. The
story goes that a pilgrim was on his way to Santiago de Campostella.
On his journey he was accused of theft, found guilty, but protested
his innocence and insisted that he be allowed to plead his case
personally at the judge's house. His request was granted. He
prayed to St. Jacob for help and stated that a grilled fowl
on the judge's table would crow if he was innocent, and, indeed,
the rooster immediately jumped off the tray and started crowing
vibrantly.
Thus
the Cock of Barcelo has ever since been associated with faith,
justice, hope, and most notably, good luck.
If you are self-catering for the most part, as we were, you'll
fine the Algarve is cheap. At the local large supermarket -
Modelo - you'll find staple foodstuffs are two thirds the price
in Canada. The Portuguese wine especially, for a decent table
wine goes for 2-4 and a six-pack of beer is 3.50. Also, remember
that there are no consumption taxes in Portugal, thus no taxes
on your groceries, nor on your restaurant meals, nor on your
trinkets to bring home.
Along
the coast there are lots of beaches to choose from, big and
small. One of the most interesting is the Praia Donna Ana. For
truly spectacular views of the beach of Praia Donna Ana, stop
at the Restaurant Mirante overlooking the beach some sixty feet
up. This spot also looks over to the huge beach at Lagos and
the cliffs on the other side. Just south of the beach of Donna
Ana is the Ponte de Piedad, a peninsula that juts out into the
sea, with very pretty rock and cliff formations rising from
the sea, with grottoes and 'swim-throughs' and, of course, retired
ex-fishermen with motor-boats willing, for a modest sum, to
take you through this mini-wonderland.
You
walk down to the boats from the top of the Ponte de Piedad on
a staircase of a couple of hundred steps - not an excursion
for the unfit in July. At the end of the small peninsula there
is, of course, a bar which is very welcome if you did not bring
water with you and you feel you are close to getting heat-stroke!
On top of the peninsula there are several walks along the cliff-side
- look out for danger signs. It goes without saying that the
views both east and west along the coast are brilliant. This
entire area of the Algarve coast is composed of soft, unconsolidated
limestone and clay. Rubbing a cliff-side with your hand and
dislodging mini-slides can actually be dangerous as there are
frequent overhangs and you can see large boulders strewn on
the beaches where sections of the cliff have collapsed, probably
due to heavy rainfall.
If
you're a golfer, the Algarve has courses in abundance, but they
have very stuffy rules. They try to be holier than the pope
- with rules more rigid than those in Scotland, where I have
played too. If you wish to play in Portugal you must have an
official handicap and all the right gear.
The Moors have had a long history in the Algarve (and Spain),
arriving as conquerors in 711 A.D. where they remained until
they were expelled back to North Africa until 1272. Their most
notable remains are their fortifications, and in the Algarve
the most impressive one is their fortress at Silves, not far
inland from Albufeira. In the 11th century it was the administrative
centre of the Algarve. The Moors constructed lavish palaces
and Xelb, the Moorish name for Silves, became a cultural centre
for learning, administered from Cordoba in Spain.
They
imported lions and other wild animals that are said to have
roamed freely through exotic gardens. None of that now remains,
but the outer walls of the castle fortifications have been rebuilt
to their former glory (and, of course, there is a larger than
life statue of Alfonso III, conqueror of the Moors, right outside
the main gates) and there are still archeological excavations
going on inside. This is a worthwhile day trip.
So is a trip to Seville across the border in Spain, the self-styled
frying pan of Europe, and so it was on the day we took a bus-trip
there, with the thermometer hitting 37°C.
The
famous cathedral there is worth a visit. It is the largest Gothic
church in the world and by interior cubic volume, the largest
church in the world, surpassing even St. Peter's in Rome. The
entrance fee is 7, but only 1.5 if you are a senior. It is
a very nice leisurely walk, unique not because there are several
pedestrian streets devoted to window-shopping and expensive-shopping,
but because huge sunshades, very large bolts of cloth, had been
hung from one side of the street to the other in order to shade
the pedestrians below.Very smart.
For
the second week of our vacation we had decided to stay in Spain.
We chose Comares - one of the famous white villages of Andalusia
- this one having the distinction of being the highest white
village in southern Spain, perching on a hilltop at 700 meters
above sea-level. The drive up was not as hair-raising as I thought
it would be. We checked into our self-catering apartment, (Casa
del Tajo: www.ownersdirect.co.uk/spain/S1995.htm)
itself perched on the edge of a crag with a very large patio
from which to watch the extensive valley 20 km away to the north
and the Sierras de Malaga in the distance. A fantastic spot
for having a cocktail while we watched the sun go down behind
the hills. In the evening, the European swallows come out of
their nests and the sky above our crag would be filled with
hundreds of them as they hunted flying insects for their supper
at the sunset hour. Later, on clear nights, the Milky Way and
all the other stars could be seen and at this height, from a
hilltop and with no artificial lighting to diminish the view,
it was a sight to behold. And on clear days, looking south down
the broad valley, you can see the ocean.
Kate,
the apartment owner had extras ready for us such as a fruit
basket and a bottle of the local wine. The apartment is small,
the bedroom uniquely round and from the outside it looks like
a cupola. With the bedroom doors open, you look beyond the patio
to the hills in the distance. A breakfast nook, a tiny but well-equipped
kitchen and a small living room with TV, makes up the rest,
but the gem is really the patio with that million-dollar view.
This is a real get-away-from-it-all vacation in the hills -
there's nothing to do except visit a couple of bars, shop in
the local food market, enjoy the view and enjoy some very nice
hikes under and around the town.
The
tiny town square has two bar/restaurants, one Spanish and, of
all things, one English. The English, of course, have gone on
a mad buying spree in Andalusia. The owners, an English couple
in their sixties, have lived and worked just about everywhere
in the world, and they have decided that this was it for a while,
before moving on again. They serve roast beef with Yorkshire
pudding on Sundays, pub lunches on other days, and all your
regular English and Scottish draft ales. All the local ex-pats
gather for a pint in the "cool" of the evening, but
we were the only real tourists in town.
In
the grocery store, a litre of the local, excellent lager was
0.72 and we discovered most of the foodstuffs, including meat,
were cheap compared with home. Comares used to be an old fortified
Moorish stronghold, and there are still vestiges of the walls
and, more noticeably, the switch-back road up from the valley
below, made of stones laid by the Moors over 1000 years ago.
At that time it was the route to the valley below and was used
by the women to fetch water and the men who descended to till
their fields. One day, a very large herd of goats appeared from
somewhere in the middle of the village and spread their way
down past our abode and into the valley below.
They
were herded by a couple of dogs, a boy and a grizzled old man.
We felt as though we had suddenly stepped back a century. From
here we made one day-trip to Malaga on the Mediterranean to
see the fortress of Alcazabar. We had been warned that the road
down to the coast was narrow, winding and treacherous and that
the bus was the best choice. And so it was. It left early in
the morning and returned before evening. The fortress of Alcazabar,
with its massive double walls, was impressive, although most
of the fortress has been rebuilt to represent how it was before
the Christian kings reduced it to rubble. On the coast the temperature
was more pleasant - only 28°C or so in the middle of the day.
Very
near the Alcazabar a Roman amphitheatre was being excavated
and, of course, there was a cathedral, hard by the fortress
and, opposite, an appealing tapas bar where we had lunch and
indulged in some lengthy people-watching over a nice bottle
of the local vintage. We had a great trip and enjoyed our glimpses
of Portugal and Spain.
Our
greatest regret is that we did not get to Granada to see the
Alhambra. Next time.
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