A Day During My Visit to Portugal in November

I wrote this while I was there; and then forgot it. I'll put some pictures up in a few days:

Visit to the Algarve, Portugal

The total cost of this trip was probably above $400 dollars. I found a fairly good deal at a 4-star beach resort in Praia de Gale, which is about 40 km west of the Faro Airport for $40 per night (for four nights). The flight was probably about $150 total, and the rental car was a little over $100. It would have been less if I knew how to drive a stick-shift, but unfortunately the very same people who claim that it’s a right of passage for American males to learn to drive a stick are the very last people to let you learn on their cars, and I never learned how. Thus have I become well acquainted with my little five-door Fiat Punto, with an automatic transmission that behaves more like a stick-shift than anything else I’ve ever driven. Kind of weird, but well worth the rental fee. Because I turned 23 two weeks before I got to Faro, I didn’t have to pay the extra fee for being underage, although it was through TravelRent, a car company I’ve never heard of before.

Driving in Portugal is wild; on the major highway (notice the singular use of the term) that passes through the Algarve, the 120 km speed limit is more or less nominal, and I found plenty of people going 20 km above that with no problem. The back-roads are really scenic; the tile roofs, white-washed villages, orange groves and large hills to the north really make this place all I’ve imagined it to be. I drove from my hotel in Gale to a town to the western inland part of the region called Silves, which is a dramatic little town composed of a steep hill covered with little white houses and protected by a towering, 12^th century Moorish castle at the top. The church next to the castle even had old ladies dressed in all black congregating outside, just like in a movie. I toured through the castle, which was under restoration so that the old Moorish gardens could (after a millennium) again take over the courtyard. After a blindingly nervous drive down one-way streets that were built way before the automobile was ever invented, I continued westward through the Algarve’s hill country.

I made my way through the countryside to Monchique after a considerable climb into the hills. As I parked in the town to talk to my mom on the cell phone, I met an elderly British lady who had been living in the picturesque little mountainside town for a few years, and who pointed me up the mountain to what’s called the Foia of Monchique, an incredible mountaintop view from which you could easily see Faro, and probably into Spain. I sat at the mountaintop café and drank a cappucchino, admiring the view, before making my way down the mountain and westward, along the ridges, until I reached the western coast of Portugal. From there I proceded southward to the town of Sagres, which sits on a cape that composes the extreme southwesternmost point of continental Europe. The very end of the cape is called Cabo de S. Vicente, a gorgeous place to view the sea-cliffs that tower above the ocean for the entire visible coastline.

A few miles from S. Vicente I found a parking lot, and saw path that went down the steep cliffs to a hidden beach. I spent the next hour there, most of it in the frigid water (although the air outside was probably in the lower 70s). Apparently the little cove was so hidden that the families didn’t see much point in wearing clothes there. Those Europeans! I tried not to look (if I did, it would have seemed more like a wild game preserve than a beach, if you get my drift), and made my way back to the road for one final stop, to a Napoleon-esque castle on another cape called Forteleza. The cannons were still in place, although there wasn’t much as far as narratives go, especially since it was probably the place that Henry the Navigator set up his famous seafaring school in the 15th century. What was really neat about the place were two large holes in the ground that weren’t visible unless you almost stumbled into them.When you look inside, you see that they fall maybe 150 into the ground, and you can hear the ocean swell inside them. One of them, you could even see the passageway with the open sea at the end. I had run out of film by then, but I hope I see some more. Were they alternative escapes in the old days? Maybe. It sure must have been really cool to be a soldier back in the days when that fort was occupied.

Southern Portugal in early November was warm and sunny; with temperatures in the 70s and the water just a little colder than I would like. And then there's the nude beaches, which resemble large animal zoo exhibits than beaches, if you get my drift. Those Europeans! The sand is mostly golden-colored, and the limestone rock formations have amazing caves that you an explore on the beach (although some of them flood at high tide). Climbing the rock formations and watching the sunset was awesome. Maybe that's where the bouldering sport came from.

I suppose I've typed enough. I'm about to finish semester one over here; I've got a couple more fun travel stories to post up here in the meantime. Adios.