Portugal !

So far on this trip we have picked out winter homes in Austria and Switzerland and summer homes in France, Spain and now Portugal. When we walk down the city streets we can't help but to peep at the listing prices for a small summer bungalow......Unfortunately, the ones in Lagos, Portugal are way over our heads....just dreaming. Lagos was our first stop in the Algarve region of Portugal. The beaches and cliff/rock structures are spectacular. We had a wonderful afternoon climbing up the rocks and taking in different view points. The temperatures were perfect and we could not ask for a better day. For dinner we had our first tasting of Portugese Peri Peri chicken. We got a whole chicken for a $1.88 !

The next day we went to Sagres, Portugal , which had perfect surfing beaches and stunning views form Sagres Point. Our final stop in the Algarve was Albufeira. The town of Albufeira had countless restaurants, cafes and bars for the summer crowd to enjoy. The beach was filled with seashells of every shape, size and color.


The next stop in Portugal was to get the famous Pastel De Nata from Belem, a small suburb outside of Portugal. Pasteis de Belem is the famous bakery in Belem that specializes in this custardy/egg tart. The plan after Belem was to drive to the soccer stadium in Lisbon to purchase tickets for that evenings game against Bosnia. However, a quick stop to take a picture of a castle changed everything.

As we were walking back to the car, we see a person in the back door of the car. We are both stunned as we run over to the car. As soon as we get to the car and confront the man, he spins around and takes off running. We quickly put our backpacks in the car and bolt down the street. As we were tearing after him, two young men dropped everything and chased after the burglar. We are so thankful for these two men because without them who knows what would happen. The robber had two young men waiting for him on the other side of the bridge and they would have likely attacked us. The two men held him in an arm lock as we emptied the robbers pockets of our belongings. The police had us in holding at the police station for 5+ hours that day and we spent the entire next day in the Lisbon courthouse. As long as the day was, we had an eye opening moment about how fortunate we are to live in Canada. The two young men who helped us told us all about their lives and how travelling anywhere is unheard of and only a dream. The minimum wage in Portugal is 2 dollars an hour and their gas and rent is similar to ours in Vancouver. The police make one thousand dollars a month and have no overtime,so the 8 hours they spent with us at the courthouse was unpaid work. After this experience our next stop was Peniche and Nazare, Portugal.

We slept in Peniche on a campground near the ocean. The next morning was beautiful, the town was very traditional, quaint and revolved around capsulating ocean views and beaches. There was not alot to see here so we snappd a few photos and headed to Nazare. Nazare is another town where we would like to purchase a summer home, it is a seaside village. The beaches are flat and far strecthed, the sand is clean and powdery and the restaurant options are endless. We enjoyed our first sampling of Portuguese fish, it was delicious. We love Portugal but it is time to start heading North because we only have a week left in our trip and have alot left to see.

We have added a few pictures of San Sebastian, Spain. We had a stop over there a few days ago and absolutely adored this city. Its clean, lively, full of tapas and  best of all everything is close to the beach.

Cheers,

Carmen and Carlo

Lagos

Lagos

Lagos

Lagos

Peniche

Sagres

Lagos

Nazare

Grilles Sardines

San Sebastian

Nazare

Avo selling us nuts!

Pastel de nata....yummy and Super Bock beer!

San Sebastian

Tarifa and Morocco !

Ohla from Seville, Spain!

We have good news......We finally got a new tire on our car! This means we can drive over 80km per hour again! Unfortunately we had to drive back from the Algarve in Portugal to Seville and now we are going back to Lisbon tomorrow. We only have two weeks left and still have so much we want to see and do.

Tarifa is the most Southern coast of Spain. We heard in was beautiful but our main reason to go there was to catch the ferry to Morocco. When we arrived at our campground we were blown away. It was absolutely gorgeous, we arrived just as the sun was setting. We met some fantastic people at the camp who travelled there and decided to stay and call it home. Tarifa has several campsites and caters to kite boarders and windsurfers. It is funny because during the day all the stores are closed because they are on the beach and in the evening the town comes alive.

We were originally going to take a ferry by ourselves and explore Tangier however, it was more expensive to do that than to take a tour. So we opted to go for a tour and we are sure glad we did. To see everything we saw in one day would have been impossible. The tour started by visiting the palaces of the Moroccan Kings and seeing panorama views of the city. We stopped over to see The Caves of Hercules where it is rumored the the mythical figure Hercules, used to rest in the caves after a day of fishing. We drove to the Old town where we indulged in a traditional Moroccan lunch; Moroccan bread called khobz, beef skewers, a traditional soup, a couscous dish, a type of sugar cookie and warm mint tea. After lunch we visited a carpet store and a spice doctor. This part of the tour was a little cheesy but we took it with a grain of salt and sampled the rose cream that "makes me look ten years younger." We went through the town and got hassled to buy everything from Kleenex to toy camels.  We loved experiencing a completely different culture. As touristy as the town is, the locals have kept to their traditions and made the trip over there a memory we will never forget. At the end of the day we were exhausted and couldn't wait to get back to the campsite. The next morning we had  get up early to drive to Seville.

We will update you with our Portugal pictures soon!

Cheers,

Carmen and Carlo

Campsite in Tarifa

Tarifa Sunset

Our Campsite

A beach down the road from our camp.

Sand dunes

Wishing we did gymanstics as children



Morocco Camels



Smiles

Laughing the whole time

Better idea of how big the sand dunes were

Caves of Hercules in Morocco

Cave market

Serenading us at lunch

Local Carpets

Our traditional Moroccan lunch

Carcassonne and Barcelona !

Ohla Amigos!

We are writing from Granada, Spain. Granada is our half way stop to Tarifa, the Southern tip of Spain.

Before we arrived in Barcelona we stopped in a town called Carcassonne. Carcassonne is a a small town in France, home to the Carcassonne Fortified City. It is a medieval city and the first of 52 towers date back to the mid 1200's. Visitors are permitted to explore the entire grounds,both inside and out. Inside the Fortress there are shops, bakeries, chocolatiers and restaurants. We munched on a baguette sandwich with fresh goat cheese and honey and indulged a homemade apricot crepes.

From Carcassonne we made our way to Barcelona. We arrived at a campground that was metres away from the ocean. They offered a complimentary shuttle to downtown Barcelona which was extremely handy. We had a blast in Barcelona!
Some of the highlights:

- Barcelona market- They had fresh fruits, meats, candies, pastries, smoothies and seats for costumers to sit at and eat seafood/tapas which were payed for by the amount of tootshpicks left over.

-Sagrada Familia- A Roman Catholic Church designed by Gaudi. Ground broke for the church in 1882 and is scheduled to be completed in 2026. It was a 2 hour hike to get there but we both agree we have never seen anything so amazing

-Beaches- The beaches in Barcelona are beautiful. We spent one afternoon burying our feet in the sand and reading. It was incredible to hear the waves from our tent every morning......until the campsite donkeys started the morning wake-up calls.

From Barcelona we made our way to Valencia. Valencia was just to sleep , we weren't going to spend any time there.....until.....OUR TIRE BURST. This is still a work in progress, we are currently driving 80km per hour on our spare until we get to Seville, Spain at the end of the week, where they hopefully have our tire in stock.

Our drive from Valencia to Granada was amazing. There was so many things to see as we drove through the desert-like roads. The mountains were like nothing we have seen before, all different shapes, sizes and colours. We had breathtaking sunrises and sunsets and couldn't help but to take pictures as we were driving.

On Tuesday we are taking a ferry to Morocco, Africa. We are so excited to experience a taste of the African culture. We will update you again in a few days.

Cheers,
Carmen and Carlo

Just a few of the cats at our campsite in Gernada, Spain

Stealing Oranges

Smoothies

Sagrada Familia

Bulk candy at Barcelona market

Some of the dried fruit at the Barcelona market

Beach in Barcelona

View of Fortress Carcassonne

Walking through the castle in Carcassonne, France

View from campsite in Murcia, Spain

Our Campsite in Barcelona had Donkeys and Goats