We were up bright and early (Lynda time) to get going on our drive to the Algarve Region of Southern Portugal. If we had a magic carpet we would have driven all the way to Lagos and seen the beautiful rock formations at the point of land there but, we were under a time limit and not trying to exhaust the driver! So we settled on Faro, taking the toll way there and the secondary road back until we crossed the bridge back into Spain. Getting to Faro was uneventful – Portugal has a really great system for “foreign” plated cars (yes even Spain cars are foreign) where they have an automated toll booth when you enter the country that takes a picture of your car and after you put in a credit card issues you a receipt for your toll account. Then any tolls that you incur, will go onto that credit card – no stopping along the way to pay like in Spain and Italy.
The tollway in Portugal was very nice – apparently the EU had helped fund that road, however to date I have not been charged any tolls yet so I am curious how much our segment from the border to Faro cost us! We drove through Faro towards the marina and were surprised with the amount of tagging that was being done in this town. Some of it tagging that is a nuisance and some of it was beautiful tagging – artwork! Getting close to the water, we immediately got parked in an accessible parking spot that sort of just “appeared” before us! I knew we were in close proximity to where we wanted to be so why not take it! I then understood why it was there – next to it was a knitting and sewing store but it was closed! Darn! Oh well, what would I do with Andrew??? So we walked towards the waterfront and ran into “tourist row” of restaurants and other things like McDonalds (they are still surprising me how unassuming the McD’s are here). We walked around the waterfront and ran into a street market which I just had to check out! I bought my requisite fridge magnet and some tiles that I liked and then, as the temperature was getting hot, stopped in for some refreshments at a ice cream shop where I had a thin chocolate milkshake and Andrew had some coffee ice cream. We then walked back to the car and proceeded along Route 125 which really is like Lougheed Highway along the north of the Fraser River. Cruising along it I saw a random sign for a beach so I asked Andrew to turn off so we could check it out – well what a surprise we got! We drove through what seemed to be a resort of cabins and then to a road with parking (funny enough the 2 accessible spots were free) and a bridge out to what we thought was the beach. So we parked and walked over the bridge which actually took us to a train like the one in Stanley Park – we could walk to the beach – 2 km or take the train – I was free, Andrew was 3.60 Euros round trip. We took the train! What a beautiful beach we ended up at! It had several restaurants, washrooms, souvenir and beach shops and in front THE BEACH. Everywhere were ramps or boardwalks so I had no issues getting around! Going down to the beach there even were beach chaises reserved for people with disabilities and a boardwalk right to the chaise. If someone wanted to get to the water and could not get there in their wheelchair they had the beach wheelchair available for their use! I was amazed! We walked around a bit however as it was blistering hot and we were not prepared for the beach, we decided to go back and continue on our adventure in Portugal! So back to the car we went. Along the way, as it was low tide, we also saw little crabs scurrying around on the mud flats and Tavira in the distance – all those white houses of this area sure stand out and look lovely! So into the car we got and set Google to take us to Tavira and what a route it took us on – we almost drove through some farms the road was so small! However with a couple of turns and patience we were back on 125 and into the town in no time. Tavira was a fascinating town – most of the buildings were tiled! Unfortunately as we drove through it on a one way street, the sun was facing me so a lot of my pictures did not work out. I just have a couple that I was able to rescue. After driving around the town, we were onto 125 again and heading towards Vila Real de Santo Antonio which is right in the south east corner of Portugal – the only way to go is north up to the tollway or east into Spain! So we at that time returned to Spain – so long Portugal and Algarve! Back to the hotel we drove and prepared for our drive tomorrow to Sevilla!
