top of page

The Algarve & the white villages of Andalusia

fredstraveltrails

Updated: Sep 6, 2021

Europe has been a favourite destination for us, both having been born there, but we had never visited the South-West corner, so this was going to be the year. We flew to Lisbon and picked up our car rental since we were going to be doing quite a bit of driving around. Stepping out of the airport, the first thing to get your attention is the heat. In July the country is hot and dry. Around Lisbon, the vegetation is still green if not lush, cacti are growing everywhere with the occasional palm tree.


On the drive down from Lisbon towards the Algarve it gets hotter, drier and browner. There are large stretches of ‘savannah’ and frequent stands of very interesting-looking umbrella pine trees (Pinus Pinea), producer of those delicious pine nuts). It would not take too much imagination to believe that you were in the Serengeti in the dry season and that that collection of yellow-brown lumps in the distance beneath the umbrella tree was a pride of lions taking a siesta during the hot mid-day sun. If you go in July-August, be prepared for really hot weather – mid to upper 30s.


The Algarve has about 200 miles of seafront and boasts several dozen beaches, large and small, some very picturesque. About half of that length has established tourist destinations from Sagres in the west to Tavira in the east with most of the action centring on Albufeira and Lagos.





We stayed for one week just outside Albufeira at a self-catering time-share exchange resort: The Balaia Golf Village … very nice but expensive, unless you have a time-share week or two to exchange like we did.


Albufeira is just one tourist town on the Algarve. A typical tourist town, it is still pretty, with a very nice big beach and lots of authentic restaurants to choose from. A must visit restaurant is O Penedo’, at #15 rua Latino Coelho, high on a bluff on the west side of town with the obligatory outside terrace having a truly outstanding view of the town and the beach below. The food was local, excellent and not expensive; a very romantic setting in the evening.



Praia dos Pescadores, Albufeira, view from O Penedo

By contrast, if you wanted to listen to the typical Portuguese music - Fado – then right in the middle of town, next to the tunnel leading down to the beach, is the restaurant Atrium at 20, rua 5 de Outubro street, located in the old Albufeira Theatre Hall. Fado is performed three times a week. Sorry, I’m not a fan. The 5th of October Street (October 5th is a holiday because it is the day that, in 1143, Portugal became an independent country. On that day at the Cathedral of Zamora, King Alfonso VII of Leon and Castile signed a treaty with King Alfonso I of Portugal stating that Portugal was an independent country and that both kings would respect and be peaceful towards each other - that did not last...) is the main drag in town connecting the beach, via the tunnel, with the upper town’s central square. The street is jammed with wall-to-wall restaurants, tourist shops, street vendors – and tourists having a ball. However, all the restaurants are pretty much the same, with the same set of food and very similar prices: € 10-20 for main courses, with the exception of shellfish, (shrimps, prawn, lobster) which are expensive. For quality and price these prices can’t be beat. The main square has a fountain, lots of shade and seating just to veg out and do some people watching from one of the outdoor cafés. Cops ride around on bicycles in the warren of tiny side streets where old Albufeira still exists – a must visit to see the unique doors.


The famous “Cock of Barcelo” with its huge comb and wattles, can be found everywhere in all the bric-a-brac stores, as stand-alone figurines, on dinnerware, and those beautiful blue tiles which are so reminiscent of Delft tiles. ‘The Cock’ has become synonymous with Portugal. If it isn’t the national bird, it should be. The story goes that a pilgrim was on his way to Santiago de Campostella. On his journey he was accused of theft, found guilty, but protested his innocence and insisted that he be allowed to plead his case personally at the judge’s house. His request was granted. He prayed to St. Jacob for help and stated that a grilled cock on the judge’s table would crow if he was innocent, and, indeed, the rooster immediately jumped off the tray and started crowing vibrantly. Thus, the Cock of Barcelo has ever since been associated with faith, justice, hope, and most notably, good luck.


If you are self-catering for the most part, as we were, the Algarve is cheap. At the local large supermarket - Modelo, your staple foodstuffs are two thirds the price in Canada. The Portuguese wine especially… a decent table wine goes for € 4-7 and a six-pack of beer is € 4.50. Also, remember that there are no consumption taxes in Portugal, thus no taxes on your food, on your trinkets to bring home, no taxes on your restaurant meal.


Along the coast there are lots of beaches to choose from, big and small. One of the most interesting is the Praia Donna Ana. For truly spectacular views of the beach, stop at the Restaurant Mirante overlooking the beach some sixty feet up. This spot also looks over to the huge beach at Lagos and the cliffs on the other side. Just south of the beach of Donna Ana is the Ponte de Piedad, a peninsula that juts out into the sea, with very pretty rock and cliff formations rising from the sea, with grottos and swim-throughs and, of course, retired ex-fishermen with motor-boats willing, for a modest sum, to take you through this mini-wonderland. You walk down to the boats from the top of the Ponte de Piedad on a staircase of a couple of hundred steps - not for the unfit in July.




The signs at the bottom informed us that the limestone at the bottom was deposited at the beginning of the Jurassic era – OK... At the end of the small peninsula there is the obligatory bar, very welcome if you did not bring water with you and you are close to getting heat-stroke. On top of the peninsula there are several walks along the cliff-side – look out for danger signs. It goes without saying that the views both east and west along the coast are brilliant. This entire area of the Algarve coast is composed of soft, unconsolidated limestone and clay. Rubbing a cliff-side with your hand, and dislodging mini-slides can actually be dangerous as there are frequent overhangs and you can see large boulders strewn on the beaches where sections of the cliff have collapsed probably due to heavy rainfall.


If you’re a golfer, the Algarve has courses in abundance, but they have very stuffy rules. Trying to be holier than St. Andrew’s – by that I mean Scotland where the rules are much less rigid. In the Algarve, the courses are really for the upper crust - you must have an official handicap and you must have golf shoes, etc. I guess they didn't like my money - talk about shooting yourself in the foot.


The Moors had a long history in the Algarve (and Spain) arriving as conquerors in 711 A.D. and not being finally expelled back to North Africa until 1272. Their most notable remains are their fortifications, and in the Algarve the most impressive one is their fortress at Silves, not far inland from Albufeira. In the eleventh century it was the administrative centre of the Algarve.


The Moors constructed lavish palaces and Xelb, the Moorish name for Silves, became a cultural centre for learning, administered from Cordoba in Spain. They imported lions and other wild animals that are said to have roamed freely through exotic gardens. None of that now remains, but the outer walls of the castle fortifications have been rebuilt to their former glory (and, of course, there is a larger-than-life statue of Alfonso III, conqueror of the Moors, right outside the main gates) and there are still archaeological excavations going on inside. This is a worthwhile day trip.


So is a trip to Seville, the self-styled frying pan of Europe, and so it was on the day we took a bus-trip to Seville, with the thermometer hitting 37°C. Close by the famous cathedral is a very nice leisurely walk, unique not because there are several pedestrian streets devoted to window-shopping and expensive-shopping, but because huge sunshades, very large bolts of cloth had been hung from one side of the street to the other in order to shade the pedestrians below. Very smart. The cathedral is worth a visit. It is the largest Gothic church in the world and by interior cubic volume, the largest church in the world, surpassing even St. Peter’s in Rome. The entrance fee is €7, but only €1.5 if you are a senior.




St. Mary of the Sea, Seville

For our second week, we had chosen Comares, – one of the white villages of Andalusia – a day’s drive from Albufeira… this one having the distinction of being the highest white village in southern Spain, perching on a hilltop at 700 meters above sea-level. The drive up was not as hair-raising as I thought it would be on the super-narrow roads. We checked into our self-catering apartment, itself perched on the edge of a crag with a very large patio from which to watch the extensive valley to the north and the Sierras de Malaga farther in the distance - fantastic for having a drink as you watch the sun go down behind the hills. In the evening the European swallows came out of their nests and the sky above our crag would be filled with hundreds of swallows as they hunted flying insects for their supper as the sun descended to the west. An hour later on a clear night the Milky Way came out for view and from this hilltop, at this height, with no artificial lighting to spoil the view, at was a sight to behold.

Our cliff-side residence on the right, Comares

On a very clear day, looking south down a broad valley you can see the ocean. Kate the owner had extras ready for us, like a fruit basket and a bottle of the local vino. The apartment is small, the bedroom uniquely round, from the outside it looks like a cupola. With the bedroom doors open, you look beyond the patio to the hills in the distance. A breakfast nook, teeny-tiny kitchen, but well equipped and a very small living room with TV, makes up the rest, but the gem is really the patio with that million-dollar view. This is a real get away from it all vacation in the hills – nothing to do with the exception of a couple of bars, food market, the view and some very nice hikes under and around the town.


The tiny town square has two bars, one Spanish and, of all things, one English. The English, of course, have gone on a mad buying spree in Andalusia. The owners, an English pair in their sixties, have lived and worked just about everywhere in the world, and they have decided that this was it for a while, before moving on again. They serve Roast Beef with Yorkshire Pudding on Sundays, pub lunches on other days, and all your regular English and Scottish draft ales. All the local ex-pats gather for a pint in the “cool” of the evening. In the grocery store, a liter of the local, excellent lager was € 0.72. Most of the foodstuffs, including meat were cheap compared with home.


Comares used to be an old fortified Moorish stronghold, and there are still vestiges of the walls and much more noticeably the switch-back road up from the valley below, made of stones laid by the Moors over 1000 years ago, which, at the time, served as the main entrance to the town, and was used by the women to get water in the valley below and the men to go till their fields. It was an experience (like it is elsewhere in the Old World) to walk those stones trod by so many feet so long ago.


One day a very large herd of goats appeared from somewhere in the middle of the village and spread their way down by our abode and then down into the valley below, herded by a couple of dogs, a boy and a grizzled old guy. You would think you had suddenly stepped back a century.


We were the only tourists in town.


We made one day-trip to Malaga on the Mediterranean Sea to see the fortress of Alcazaba. We took the daily bus leaving early in the morning and returning before evening, since we had been warned that the road down to the coast was tiny, winding and treacherous, and that the bus was the best choice and so it was. The fortress of Alcazaba – large double walls – was impressive, although most of the fortress has been rebuilt to mimic what used to stand before the Christian kings reduced it to rubble.


Although not as impressive (I’m led to believe) as the Alhambra of Granada, it was satisfyingly different from the day-to-day. Moorish arches and water features were prominent – shady squares with orange trees – mosaic tiles on the walls with extravagant geometric designs – very Arabic.




On the coast the temperature was more pleasant - only 28°C or so in the middle of the day. Very near the Alcazaba, they were excavating an ancient Roman amphitheatre…(history is everywhere in this part of the world (Malaga was settled by the Phoenicians in the 8th century, BC, then it was owned by Carthage, then the Romans, then Visigoths…….) and of course, there was a cathedral, hard by the fortress, and opposite, a nice tapas bar, where we had lunch and indulged in some lengthy people-watching over a nice bottle of the local vintage.


Our greatest regret is that we did not get to go to Granada to see the Alhambra.

Well...next time.


Recent Posts

See All

Comments


bottom of page