Life in the Algarve

On Tuesday 12th July the 2 Portuguese Tarts headed towards Algarve in our little Peugeot. We hit the A2 freeway and joined the stream of cars also exiting the city in search of sun and sea. Maria was the designated driver and Diana was the navigator. We pushed our little Peugeot as much as he would give and managed an average of 130km per hour, however this was quite slow based on the fact that even the old battered trucks were overtaking us. At least we enjoyed the scenery.

We arrived in the little village of Algoz. About 5km from the coast. We are staying at the villa with Maria's parents and uncles and aunts. Almost everyone in this little town is related.

The food gets better and better. Beautiful sardines and other types of fish bought fresh off the boat. The sweetest fruit, the juciest tomatoes and beautiful herbs. Thank God it's healthy !!! We are truly overdosing. We still continue our mandatory daily tart with coffee. OF COURSE !!!!

Maria's uncle Jose took Di on a Tour of the historic town of Silves. A town which was invaded by the Moors and where they built a castle. The castle of Silves dates back to 1200.

We headed off to the beautiful cove beach of San Raffael. More cakes.... Bolinhas, sold by men trawling the beach with baskets full of freshly cooked bolinhas, doughnut like balls filled with a custard made only with egg yolks and sugar, a beautiful yellow runny delight. After about 4 hours of beach, we then headed off to explore Albufeira a historical coastal town, now unfortunately, also a popular haunt for MANY poms escaping the English weather for the portuguese sun..

After the usual late dinner 10:00 pm, you go promenade with everyone else and have the last coffee for the day.

Today, 19 July, we started a mammoth shopping frenzy. Maria was shopping for a big family lunch she is holding tomorrow and while we were at the shopping centre we took the opportunity to see the other shops....of course. Our first stop was Zara. Retail heaven. They were on sale...Ahhhhhhhhhh. Di is now converted. Some amazing bargains were found. After. Some time we realized it was 9 pm and we still had not gone to the supermarket, thankfully they closed at midnight. How civilized !!!! There was time to spend drooling over the cheese section of the supermarket. We arrived home tired, hungry and with more luggage for our return trip. After an alfresco dinner of Portuguese grilled chicken and a fresh tomato and cucumber and coriander salad at 11:30pm we are calling it a night for a big day tomorrow with 20 of Maria's family for lunch.