Lessons learnt: don't trust what you *see* on the net, only pay deposits for accomodation, don't go on holiday during bank holidays, always chill, it will turn out just fine in the end.
| It all started a bit, well... late.
We left it to 10 days before organising what was to be our nice
relaxing week in the south of Portugal. Let's take the car, cruise on
down, and chill, that's what we thought... First off I started
looking on the web at private apartments and villas (www.holiday-rentals.co.uk).
Not much was available at that late notice, but I found a nice
looking place, talked to the owner, and sent her a cheque - the full
payment for the week (dumb, eh?). A few days later, and a few before
the holiday date I phoned to check the cheque had arrived. Answer:
yes, but we already rented it someone else anyway. I then had to
trust she was going to send my cheque back, which she actually did,
as it was waiting for me in the post box when we got home. Next up, a
frantic day searching the web for other suitable places. Received a
great tip about a place in Salema, and through our own initiative we
found another fantastic looking place in Tavira (more about that
later).
Driving from Madrid to the Algarve (south Portugal) was about a 6 hr job. As you get into Portugal, if you approach it from Badajoz you are presented with a nice 3 (or was it four...) lane motorway. No delays, until you reach some of the smaller towns between Tavira and Salema... we ended up waiting in traffic for about an hour and a half, and, it's hard to say why. At least there's a nice bridge to cross. |
 |
| Once we got to Salema, it was all worth it. It's a very small place, with just a couple of large-ish hotels and a few B&B type places. Our top floor apartment was a real home from home, with a great view of the beach. We were probably only about 300 metres from the beach (or, if you are the Spanish bloke who had the next door flat - about 50 metres macho). There's only a few places to eat (snack bar Lourenco is very small, but with great seabass), but the beach is great, and it's the kind of place we were after - nice and quiet. Shame the place was only available for 2 nights... |
 |
 |
 |
(Photos: View from the apartment, The beach, Conchi and me). Next up was a drive back east to Tavira... |
| As we pulled into Tavira, it all looked OK. A small town, with a lot more tourists than Salema milling about. We couldn't see the beach, and that's about when we began to believe what someone had mentioned the day before - the beach is only available via a boat trip. We stopped off at the tourist information office to get directions to our hotel where I'd booked the rest of our holiday. Following the instructions we left the town centre following a road closr to the river. At one junction the map indicated we should still follow the river into what looked like some kind of run-down, industrial street complete with repair shops, roadworks, and a road closed sign... Conchi couldn't believe it... I couldn't believe it. We were hoping I'd got the directions wrong, but... no, it was the place. We were greated by the charasmatic owner, witht he phrase "you're shokced, aren't you? If you don't like it then you can have your money back, but give it some thought, no-one else has ever decided to leave early.". By evening I'd already told him we'd be moving out the next day! The place was fantastic inside, the owner is friendly, the bar is great, but for the price I like to be able to open the double glazed window without: a) hearing the noise of the road being widened; b) smelling the the river; c) hearing a train rumble overhead on the train bridge. Thankfully I got our money back and we were away the next day. Tavira itself wasn't that great. The beach on the island is only accessible via a short boat trip (you can camp out there), and is very large with yellow sand - seems like a good place for a large group of friends to stay. We did have a really good meal and evening int he town though. Next day we were driving back to Salema for some peace and quiet... |  |
 |
 |
 |
(Photos: Took some time out to visit the tourist trap construction zones on the way back to Salema, A small beach before Salema, The view from our 2nd hotel in Salema). |
| The weather took a turn for the worse for a day, so we went further west, visiting some great looking beach spots. Then Thursday rolled around. A bank holiday in Spain. A bank holiday in Portugal. We tookadvantage of the good weather again and stayed on the beach until late afternoon. Took a biteto eat and then headed out to another town to look for a hotel for the night. Then another town. Another... |  |
Then a city. Then through some hell Benidrom on Acid. Another City (Faro). Across the border into Spain. Oh, only about 2am now. Add the time difference - 3am. We found a place at 5am in Huelva. Amazingly we were still talking to each other, and the next day booked a night at a country retreat in a small village outside of Sevilla (lot of driving eh!?) |  |
| We spent one night in the countryside, survived a wasp attack, a village party (some of these village parties can be quite bizarre, it's like you step back in time, and you aint no-one unless you can ride a horse), and a pack of dogs (ok, very friendly dogs who lived a the house and just wanted to eat my crisps). We were meant to be on a relaxing beach holiday, right? |  |
So, Saturday morning we get up, get back in the car and rally it through the countryside surrounding Sevilla. One track roads, half eaten away roads, me driving down the wrong side of the road at a junction, that sort of thing, all to finally arrive on a beach just east of Malaga. Spent the day there, and then made the 6hr journey back to Madrid |  |
| I guess it sounds like this trip was a disaster, but it wasn't that way at all. It was fun, and if I think back to my trip to Andalucia last year with PG (you know, the one where he fell ill, and began asking me to stop changing the colour of people, and to stop the car even when we were in a hostel...), I think I've almost driven the whole of the south coast of Europe ;-) |
music: portugese radio rocks the nu-metal, rocks the indie rock, rocks the english singing rock (i.e. compared to Spanish radio, it rocks... apart from RNE3 in Spain, which can rock the rock and all that's rockable). We spent a lot of time driving, and we only had a few Depeche Mode and Cure tapes, so, we heard the radio a fair bit.