Holiday in the Algarve
We’ve had a fantastic week’s ‘holiday’ with Jenny and Paul; although for them it probably felt like a working holiday with cooking, washing up and food shopping every day! We stayed at Camping Albufeira, which was a great campsite –certainly the best we’ve stayed on. The pitches are large and shaded by trees, the sanitary blocks are huge and there are 3 large swimming pools. The site also has 3 bars, a restaurant, a pizzeria and a pretty comprehensive supermarket. All in all we couldn’t have asked for much more – except maybe a solution to the ant problem!
Our days were spent mostly the same way. On some we walked into the town which was about a mile and a half away from the campsite. The nearest beach is called the fishing beach but is mostly used for the usual sunbathing and sandcastle-building these days. However, it does have a fishing pier where Simon and Paul spent quite a lot of time. The first session was unsuccessful, but when they left Jenny and I to linger over another jug of sangria they came up trumps and had caught a bag full of mackerel by the time we returned! This was quite a coup and they had attracted quite a crowd and even given a few away – 2 to an elderly lady for her dinner – she even had the cheek to ask for them to be gutted! – and one to locals to use for bait, which was quite prestigious for Paul and showed his fishing skills! We bbq’d in style that night on freshly caught fish and vegetable kebabs.
Other days were taken up with languishing at the pool. The weather was brilliant every day and almost too hot at times, but that meant we made it into both the pool and the sea several times to cool down. We had mainly bbqs for dinner at the van, using a handy mini bbq that Jenny and Paul kindly bought for us from the campsite shop. We had seen quite a few motorhomers using these and they seem a very sensible option – taking up little space in the van and not needing an excessive amount of charcoal to cook dinner.
Garlic prawns deserve a whole paragraph to themselves! I don’t think there’s a better dish but I suppose you couldn’t eat them every single day. We all had them at a restaurant early in the week and had to seek out more on another evening and whipped up our own for our final bbq. We recommend adding a little piri piri sauce for an authentic Algarvian flavour. And not standing too close to anyone the following day!
Today we sadly said goodbye to Jenny and Paul at the airport. But we really feel like we had a week of indulgence and relaxation and it’s so nice to see friends from home. Now we’re even better equipped too with a bbq and lots of equipment and advice for fishing. We’ve stopped for the night or maybe two at Quarteira, where we stayed for one night previously. It happens to be ‘Festa dos Santos Populares’ so we walked along the promenade to see the children and adults dressed in fantastic costumes. We also checked out the fishing potential and saw a couple of reasonably sized fish landed at the side of the harbour, as well a great selection in the window of a restaurant ready to be cooked, so Simon will be putting his practice to work tomorrow. I will be mostly trying to stay in the shade as we all overdid the sun-exposure a little yesterday. Then it’ll be back to Spain and hopefully to Gibraltar, if possible, to avoid the rapidly escalating fuel situation by filling up virtually tax-free.
June 14th, 2008 at 9:22 pm
pleased to hear you had a lovely time with your friends.Friends are important so its good to keep intouch.I,ll look forward to hearing more of your trip. This write up was great as usual wish I was there
June 14th, 2008 at 11:49 pm
Free food! That’s a new one - and there’s nothing better than fresh mackerel straight from the sea!