Day 30/Dia 30 We seem to have done quite a bit since my last post so I’m splitting these up to attach the relevant photo’s in the correct place starting with 2 of Camping Albufeira and 1 of Albufeira Old Town. On Monday (Day 26) we called the shop where Sue’s tablet was being repaired and they still hadn’t had the part delivered so we decided to move on anyway as we were heading west towards Lagos and would be coming back past Albufeira a few days later. Rather than go straight to Lagos we looked for a stop over on the way and picked a town at random where it seemed you could get a nice campsite close to the beach. The site in Albufeira had been good but the wind was a bit of an issue and it got cold in the evenings. Sue doesn’t do cold evenings, that’s not what we came here for and she likes to be able to go out without a jacket or jumper, plus the wind kept blowing the dust and it just wasn’t as comfortable as we’d like so we thought we’d move somewhere a bit more sheltered. Sue looked at the map and picked a little town called Alvor. She researched it on the internet a bit and it was described as a quiet little town with a nice beach and where you would find a typically Portuguese lifestyle. So after a quick trip into Albufeira for a full English breakfast we set off following the N125 towards Alvor and then Lagos in the western Algarve ! I was desperate for a full English but Sue was being good by sticking to the healthy breakfast cereals and I couldn’t be arsed with the cooking and washing up, all for one person, anyway, what would I do with the remaining half of the tin of beans… we are on budget after all……..so out for a fry up it is then ! Nice one :-) ! When we arrived at Alvor and drove in towards the town (about 2pm) we saw the campsite we were heading for but thought we’d drive past and see where it was in relation to the town. We soon realised that Alvor wasn’t so quiet as there were lots of holidaymakers milling around, signs for big supermarkets everywhere and a fair bit of traffic. It isn’t a really big place, just more than we expected from the description on the internet and a pleasant surprise. As we drove through the town and towards the beach we could see a fairground and what appeared to be a few Motorhomes parked in a car park right next to the beach. We soon realised that this was an Aires stop. Aires are special areas where Motorhomes can stop over for free or for a very small fee. They provide basic facilities such as water and waste disposal but no electricity or water. Supposedly you can only stay for a couple of nights at the most and you aren’t allowed to put chairs or tables out etc unless they have a camping licence which is when the small charge may apply. We knew about these Aries places and had a book which apparently listed all of them throughout Portugal and Spain but this one wasn’t in there ! We hadn’t tried stopping at an Aries yet, more because we like to put our stuff out and relax than anything else but we thought we’d give this one a try. It was 4 euros a night and people had chairs and tables etc out so seemed like a good chance for us to give it a go and use all of Betsy’s onboard home comforts ! When we pulled in there were 12-15 motorhomes already there and some looked like they’d been there for weeks ! By the end of the evening there were about 30 motorhomes all parked up in rows, most of them choosing to turn up after the man collecting the fees for the night had been and gone. Proper tight these French and Portuguese ! We put the chairs outside and had a sit for a while but it was really windy and the car park was covered in dust so it wasn’t really pleasant but hey, it was 4 euros a night and we were only stopping over. So we had a walk to the beach and I had a little swim whilst Sue sat on the sand (the Atlantic is very, very, cold here). The beach was really nice but so windy you needed a windbreak to be able to sit on the sand for long, so much so that when you rented a sun bed they were all set up with windbreaks included ! This was, apparently, a windsurfers paradise and we could see why. Then we went back and chilled out at home, sitting inside before having a siesta ! In the evening, when we were getting ready to go out, Betsy really came into her own ! She has a separate bathroom at the back instead of a separate bedroom like many other motorhomes, this was one of the things we liked most when we saw her and we were glad that we did. The shower worked a treat and we didn’t feel at all restricted for space when getting spruced up for the evening ready to go out and explore this ‘sleepy little, typically Portuguese town’. Well, we were shocked, in fact we still can’t get our head round it ! The place was heaving with people walking through the little streets of the old town, there were loads of restaurants and bars and nearly everybody was speaking English, mostly with an Irish accent. It seems that back in the boom times before the recession, this was one of the places that had been developed with loads of apartments and lots of English and Irish people had taken advantage of the excellent exchange rates to buy their own piece of the Algarve, which meant that during peak season the place is really busy but out of season it is completely dead. So, Sue’s research must have pulled up some information that only talked about the winter or that predated the towns expansion because Alvor is far from a sleepy place in the summer. There were so many bars that there was a price war on the beer and you could get a pint for 90 cents ! I don’t mind if I do, obrigado ! So we had a few beers around the town and ended the night in a really cool and really busy little Reggae bar before heading back home at about 1am. Fancied something to eat on the way back but couldn’t find a kebab shop anywhere so we ended up having some savoury pastries in the only takeaway in town ! I was disappointed not to get a kebab after a few beers but glad about it in the morning when I didn’t wake up with dog breath ! LOL. Sue said she doesn’t like kebabs anyway but after a few shandy’s she has been known to partake on more than one occasion ! By the morning the high winds had blown dust just about everywhere. Betsy was filthy, inside and out. Even the cupboards in the bathroom had dust inside them ! We wouldn’t have minded staying another couple of nights for the night life but the windy beach and dusty car park made our mind up and we moved on towards Lagos. We really liked Alvor and are amazed that it’s such a secret ! No worries! :-)
Posted on: Fri, 08 Aug 2014 14:32:15 +0000
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