We made it to the bus terminal in Seville. Got our tickets online while we were in Seville. While waiting to depart, we talked with two couples from Australia. They were very funny, and older travelers. Sitting next to me on the bus was a recent college graduate from Minnesota. We talked a bit about frisbee football, which he plays competitively. He had been traveling for several weeks and had at least a month more to look forward to. We talked about all the places he'd been, and I shared my travel experiences when I was his age. Interesting guy, and very bright. Sitting next to my cousin was a lady who reminded me (her looks) of some of my Vann relatives. She shared that after divorcing in her fifties, she took a trip to Europe and it ignited a passion to travel even more. For at least a decade, she's been traveling five months out of every year. She'd been to Asia, and loved Thailand. After four hours, we arrived in the Algarve, in the city of Lagos.
getting on our bus in Seville
river separating Spain (left) and Portugal (right)
Here are the views from our AirBnb. The apartment might have been the best we had the entire trip.
This is the first beach we reached on the Ponta da Piedade trail. You could do an out-and-back hike, or more of a loop, which is what we did. We did not walk all the way to the end of the cape, although it's possible.
I detected a lot of American accents. This was likely a group of US students studying abroad or traveling together. They were having fun, no doubt.
This mural really spoke to me.
I had done a lot of research on the Algarve, and in particular the beaches and trails we might hike. I looked at so many aerial videos (on YouTube) of the limestone cliffs and rock formations, I was in awe. I also perused countless travel blogs and read various TripAdvisor accounts of people's experiences. I had very high expectations going in. In fact, the Algarve was initially what got me thinking about Portugal a few years ago. So you would expect that arriving there and seeing the beaches in person - certainly this first day - would have been the highlight of the journey. However, the opposite happened. I had more of a "This is it?" first impression. The cliffs were not as high as I thought they would be, and the beaches were a bit drab, and - Shall I say it? - a bit dirty even. We arrived in the shoulder season, and the weather was not ideal beach weather, by no means. And maybe I even over-researched it. These things might have played a role in creating a blase impression. I was not super impressed. Of course, I was looking at this one area where we hiked. Yet it was a very popular spot that's written up as a must-see. I knew, though, that over the next couple of days we'd see more beaches and we'd go on a different hike. We also had a couple of boat tours coming up, and these would give us a different way to explore the Algarve. I was excited about that.
What I did enjoy the first night was walking through the historic part of Lagos. Excellent people watching, so many places to eat seafood, and just a lively place. We had dinner at Resaurante Piri Piri. I wanted to try the Piri Piri chicken, which I had been reading about. But our selection went way beyond that: grilled sardines, fried fish platter, flan, orange sponge cake and Porto wine. The service was a bit lacking (due to our less-than-friendly waiter), but our dinner was very delicious.
(don't forget to zoom and scroll)
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