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