Enjoyed our stay at Albufeira, although it wasn't as I imagined, we then headed just down the road to Vilamoura and had a look round the marina complex, throughly enjoyed this as a previous boat owner, must restaurants were closed though until February, I can imagine it's an give of activity in the summer.
We then headed of to Alcoutim, somehow we managed to get lost and took the long route, it was slow progress as we were up and down hills, but the views were breath taking, it was there equivalent to our national park. So instead of just taking over an hour, it took us over two and a half, buts thats the beauti of traveling in a motorhome, you can just pull up, admire the view and stick the kettle on.
We eventually arrived at Alcoutim and stayed on the Aire, there was all the facilities included two electric hookups, it used to be free but from January it is now chargeable, in the morning a municipal worker came round and gave us a ticket, it was €8.40. but be warned if you stay here bring some good ear plugs, otherwise you will get a ride awakening at 5.00 am when the cockerels brake into song. We had a wander around the village, it's a bit neglected in places, it could be such an attractive place with a bit of effort, buildings needed whitewashing and some nice flower hanging baskets putting up.
I saw several municipal workers in uniform doing nothing except twiddling there thumbs, only one was actually doing a half attempt at sweeping up, the others were drinking coffee at the bars and chatting, yet there were dog shite on the pavements that could have been picked up, but just left. Further up the Hill there were three more municipal workers one with a strimmer, and one with a brush, brushing the grass off the pavements, when a blower would have had more effect and used less manpower, the other was caving, stood about picking his nose and watching his colleagues.
My impression of Portugal from what I have seen is it is slightly backwards from its neighbour Spain, the roads are in worse condition as are many of the towns, it seems that the simple life runs here, not that there's anything wrong with that, at times I wish my life was more simple.
When we woke up the following day the sun was shining so we had a walk up to the castle, you have to pay an admission fee, I was charged the over 65s rate, must have had a bloody hard paper round as I'm only 56, I obviously had to correct them. It was interesting looking around and these have a museum within the grounds with some interesting articfacts that were before BC. We then walked down to the river that separates Spain and Portugal, there is a boat you can get for €2.50 return so we went across to the Spanish town, what a difference it was too, very well kept, alit smarter in appearance too, the buildings were perfectly painted and the streets free of dog dirt, I can only assume Spain benefits greater from the EU grant system than its neighbours, either that or they spend it more wisely.
It was time to leave Portugal and head to Spain, we have enjoyed the hospitality of Portugal, the locals were very friendly indeed and made you feel welcome, we will return to explore some more next year, the majority we met could speak English too. We have stayed overnight in Heulva, it put some rain down in the night, we are parked on a big carpark near the Christopher Columbus exbition that I'm going to see this morning, there is also a botanical gardens at the same spot and a Monastery which we also hope to look round.
We are hoping to set off from here to El Rocio, heard many things about it, it maybe a mud bath though if it rained as heavy there, might only be a flying visit, from there we are then heading to Seville. The weather is supposed to be sunny from Saturday, so hopefully it will be the last we see of the grey sky for a while.