Billy Nibbles Loves Al Garve, True! (Algarve)

Member Name: Nibelung

Product:	Algarve
Date:	15/08/02 (1119 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Nice people, Fabulous summer weather, Good value food

Disadvantages: Eastern end getting very "Magaluf" if you know what I mean

I'd been to the Algarve before, four years ago, staying just to the west of the famous town of Albufeira, which was as good an introduction to the southern Portuguese coast as any, although the 'Strip' of clubs, bars and Irish Pubs in the centre of Albufeira did tend to make you wonder whether you hadn't stumbled through a rip in the space/time continuum, and come out with the date intact, but the location shifted to Southend or Blackpool during a heatwave!

Anyway, we were encouraged by the fact that we didn't HAVE to go anywhere near this part of town, and by the general friendliness of the area. Eating out is good value in Portugal - why, we even managed to dine at the next table to 'Richard and Judy', much to my wife's angst, since she appreciates that kind of thing but was facing the wrong way! (Yes, she does look a lot older than him!)

On our first trip, we did apply the G.O.Y.A. principle quite often and ventured almost to both ends of the Algarve, from Tavira in the east (not far from Spain) to Lagos (pronounced Laaa-goosh, not like the capital of Nigeria) in the west. We never did quite make it to Cape St Vincent, mainland Europe's most south-westerly point, but filed this away, as a 'do some other time'.

Having been lucky enough to find an affordable villa for two with its own pool last time, we quite fancied keeping up the trend, but with no luck this year. However, tack on a couple of friends who've never been on holiday with us before (funny, all of our friends fall into that category, or at least, they don't seem to do it twice!), and we're in business.

So this year's main holiday took us to a villa a few k's west of Lagos. This puts it a rather a long haul from Faro airport, but that's the price of getting away from the hordes of sun-worshippers, night-clubbers (and those environmental rapists, a.k.a. golfers).

Anyway, we'd taken the p

recaution of hiring cars with A/C this time (last time we were treated to what the manager called his best car, a lovely shiny BLACK one with no A/C - just what you need....not!). Since our friends are keen bird-watchers (so am I, just not that kind), we hired two small cars rather than one large one, to allow us the flexibility to do as we please when we please, rather than argue over whose turn it is to take the car.

THE VILLA

This was booked through Simply Portugal, and was called Horta da Avózinha, which I am reliably informed, means Grannie's Garden. Situated a little way inland from Praia de Luz, it wasn't exactly stand-alone as it abutted the owner's bungalow, and one other villa on site, but we all had our own privacy, and more importantly, a pool. At a pinch, the villa could have slept 7, but only by turning the sofa into a bed every night.

The kitchen was well appointed, and we had use of the owner's washing machines in a separate outhouse. Since I am an early riser, it became my 'job' every morning to go into the neighbouring orchard to pick oranges for our morning juice, grabbing a dozen or so fresh figs as I went (thinks - I must be careful how many of those I eat!). Now jobs like that I can handle! Why we even had lemons and limes for the G&T's!

THE AREA

The Algarve contains the entire southern and some of the south-western coast of Portugal. Having been under Moorish rule like much of southern Iberia, it gets its name from the Moorish 'Al Gharb' (I think) meaning The West - west of what? West of 'Al Andalus', of course.

Despite the feel of the place, it is not on the Mediterranean, but on the Atlantic as it all lies west of Gibraltar. To the immediate north of the Algarve lies Portugal's Alentejo region, supplier of much of the world's 'real' bottling cork, which is harvested from special oaks on a rotational basis.

THE CLIMA
TE

To my mind, this is where the Algarve scores in summer. The sunshine is just as strong as in Spain's southern provinces, but with the prospect of at least a gentle breeze, and sometimes something stronger, the heat is always tempered with air movement. This can lead some into assuming that it's OK to spend longer in the sun - beware! At the western end, you are literally only a few k's from the Atlantic in two directions, so the breeze is even more in evidence. In the two weeks that we were there this time, we saw one cloudy morning, which then redeemed itself by clearing up at lunchtime. Windy nights (from outside the villa, I mean) did also keep the mosquitos at bay, and I picked up one bite in the whole fortnight.

THE BEACHES

These are truly superb, and even in summer it's not too difficult to find a sparsely populated one particularly on the west coast, which is popular with surfers (the real ones). Beware of the undertow though, as many of these beaches have no safety procedures at all. Northern Cornwall in a heat wave comes to mind!

THE PEOPLE

The Portuguese strike me as very nice easy-going people but perhaps slightly less flamboyant than their Italian or Spanish 'latin' cousins. They are very polite, always use their 'pleases' and 'thank yous' and are generally used to foreigners, especially since a good many of us actually live there! I don't know whether it's just me, but I sensed that the Portuguese prefer their northern European visitors to their land-locked neighbours, the Spanish, who seem to be forever moaning about how 'they can read it but can't understand a word of it when they hear it'.

THE LANGUAGE

In theory, and on paper, it looks a lot like Spanish, but on hearing it, you begin to wonder whether you haven't landed somewhere in eastern Europe by mistake.

Listening to the Nostalgia FM radio station (pronounc
ed No
oshtalgeeah Effy Em) was like that BBC Fast Show sketch of a TV station in a 'mock-latin' language, and I swear I heard 'Fallay-hallay, fallay-hallah, Chrees Waddle' in there somewhere! Actually, 'falo' does mean 'I speak' so perhaps that's where they got the idea from.

There are one or two things you can learn which will help you through the written version at least, especially if you have knowledge of Spanish.

One is the way in which L becomes R. Hence beaches are Praia, not Playa, squares are Praça, not Plaza, white, (as in wine) is Branco, not Blanco, and even the Portuguese way of saying 'Thank You Very Much', i.e. Muito Obrigado, means 'very obliged'. Incidentally, this becomes Obrigada if you are female, but don't worry, it seems to get shortened to 'muit'obrigad' anyway.

An N in Spanish frequently manifests itself as an M in Portuguese, e.g. Bom Dia for Good Day and Bem Venido for Welcome.

It would be nice to learn more, but it might just prove too confusing, like learning Spanish and Italian together. Who knows, I collect the languages of wine-growing nations. Maybe my next evening class should be Portuguese!

UPDATE: I did join an evening class, and at least I can now answer the question "Você fala Português?" with a guarded and monosyllabic "Sim" but be fair, at time of writing, I'd only had one lesson!

p.s. I was right about that Grannie's Garden thing. "Uma avô" is a Grandmother, so "uma avózinha" is an affectionate dimunitive, i.e. a Grannie

WINING AND DINING

This is one of our main reasons for travel. Fish-lovers will adore Portugal - it's not all sardines y'know. Forget 'Med-sized' fish, these boys are from the Atlantic. Great cross-cut steaks from Sea Bass or Salmon abound and at reasonable prices too. Most restaurants operate a variable
cover charge, depending on how many of the pre-meal snacks you eat. This tends to include sardine pâté, bread, butter, local cheese, pickled carrots in garlic and the Portuguese version of Chorizo. One place we went to in Lagos served the latter flamed in the local fire-water, 'madronho'. Boy, was that the best gravy I've ever had! Once we had clued into this "cover charge" principle, we never
really felt the need for a separate starter. Other specialities feature the 'Cataplana', a copper steamer dish a bit like a small pressure cooker full of varied ingredients. We had the seafood cataplana for our last lunch there. It consisted of a very generous helping of clams, prawns, chunks of monkfish and god-knows what else, all in a delicious if slightly sloppy sauce. No sign of rice though - that would have made it a bit too much like paella, I suppose.

Coming from the London area, I felt that eating out was a bargain, and we began to get quite sniffy if the bill including service came to more than £12/head.

Portuguese wine is possibly their best-kept secret. I can only assume that since they are not 'volume-producers' that they keep all the best stuff for themselves. All we tend to see at home are Mateus Rosé, one or two brands of Vinho Verde, the young 'green' wine, the red Dão and of course any amount of red port. White port also abounds here - I'm told that the French buy most of it for export, which is why we seldom see it.

GETTING AROUND

Firstly, the Algarve is not exactly riddled with train lines. The line from the Spanish border at Vila Real goes past Faro before splitting off to go to Lisbon via the centre of the country, whilst the coastal spur terminates at Lagos, making this the 'the end of Europe's line'. Many back-packers can be seen getting off here and it's equally amusing to watch all the old ladies offering accommodation actually fighting over an
innocent young tourist - OOOOOH ,YOUNG MAN!!!!!

Driving - now this is where I take issue with Portugal. I had been told that driving in Portugal was a risky affair because of the standard of driving. In my experience of two two-week holidays, I've never really had any problems with the drivers. It's the white-lining of roads that really worries me.

By mid-summer most of it has worn away, (they o
nly seem to use domestic white paint) leaving you to guess where Stop lines are, or worse still, the middle of the road. The danger of this is heightened at night and by the fact that some roundabouts are the normal 'priority from the left' affair, whilst others seem to be the opposite. The locals know which is which, but without white lines you are sunk, and it leads to a good deal of being honked at by normally well-tempered Portuguese drivers! Yes, they will let you join the flow of traffic from a side street, although they do tend to come rather close when overtaking.

Also, get yourself a PROPER map. We were silly enough to trust the tour company's and the car hire company's maps. One had villages which appeared to have no road through them, and the other had roads, but no sign of the villages. Then of course, there were the roads that weren't on either map!

Minor villages are only signposted AT the actual junction, which leads to much grinding to a halt and back-tracking.

Portugal has a lot of new roads, thanks to EEC funding, some not quite finished, although this doesn't actually stop them being OPEN, as we found the hard and stony way!

As in Greece, your hire car insurance does not cover the tyres or the exhaust - you've been warned. Typical, the two things most likely to get broken, what a surprise!

Buses seem pretty good, and there is a 'Littoral' bus, or 'Coastliner' dropping off at all principal towns.

THINGS TO DO, PLACES TO SEE
<
br>Apart from the obvious like getting plastered every night and sleeping it off by the pool or on the beach, the Algarve has many other attractions. Firstly bird-watchers will love the salt marshes that stretch from the Spanish border west past Faro. Despite not being an expert, in the space of 30 minutes, I saw an Osprey, Great Flamingos both in flight and wading, Stilts and all kinds of sea birds - as they say, 'One Goo
d Tern Deserves Another'. These marshes have their own beauty, being extremely quiet and moody - unless you stand under the glide path to Faro airport that is!

Cabo São Vicente (Cape St Vincent) is worth a look. Here stands Europe's most powerful lighthouse on Europe's most south-westerly point. If you like the feel of places like Land's End and John O'Groats, then you'll like this place. They do seem to share a similar barren yet appealing atmosphere, and people come from miles around to watch the sunset over the Atlantic. You can really see how ancient man thought the sea was on fire. Anyhow, once you get tired of being blown inside out, it's only about 4 minutes drive back to Sagres, where some superb seafood awaits!

Silves is another lovely place to visit with a high town and a low town. The high town contains a Moorish Castle overlooking the surrounding area and the lower sits next to a moody slow river, complete with 20' reeds on the other bank and a Roman built bridge.

When escaping the coast and heading for the hills, the Monchique area is a logical place to head. Not only is the drive quite spectacular in places, but the spa town of Caldas de Monchique and Monchique itself are well worth a visit if only to go somewhere a bit cooler for a while. You can always pick a different route back, but don't do what we did, i.e. come back on a road that doesn't seem to be there on any map! Either that or take GPS with you!

Then of course, there's always the 
9;G' word, but I can't bring myself to express what I think "the Scottish Game" is doing to Spain and Portugal.

CONCLUSION

Fabulous summer climate, great beaches and great accommodation.

Terrific seafood, good wine, and gol.., no it's no good, I can't say it!

Two hours from London

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