Category: Europe

Algarve- Portugal & Southern Spain Trip. Day 3 – Lagos and the beach -Monday 12th May 2025

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We were a little late getting up…or should I say I was !!!! Our first apartment breakfast was served by John! He had fruit salad and I had toast and marmite both followed by cherry yogurt and coffee which we bring from home….We packed a beach bag and headed for the car. I had researched that a place called Sports Zone had beach chairs at a sensible price…I had also memorised the route…straight up the road in the direction of Lagos over two roundabouts and right at the next….hey presto we were there….i was dead chuffed with myself. Into Sports Zone I stride full of confident anticipation….bad news only the big stores in Lisbon and Faro stock them. I will not be foiled !!!! Sports Zone is next to a supermarket called Continente. We wandered all around but no chairs so I asked an elderly shop assistant who found a young lady to help us…she said to wait, so we did. 10 minutes later she came back with a trolly and assorted deck chairs. Most were the very low type which leave you virtually sat on the sand, but ! She had one high one with a high back and built in pillow. It didn’t have any arms but Hey Ho beggars can’t be choosers. I sat on it and it with held the weight so we asked if she had 2…..off she went again and came back with a matching pair of teal green ones…they were €20 each…bargain SOLD…YEAH!!!

Having stowed our newly acquired purchases in our very large boot we headed off to the marina. We wanted to suss out boar trips to see the spectacular caves and to dolphin watch. We skillfully found the marina but failed to find a parking space. Driving up and down tiny side streets and getting hopelessly lost. In the end we had no idea which direction we were going in, let alone where we were…..ahhhhh…..I turned on to a wider street and lo and behold infront of us was Lidl. I think it’s likely to be the only time in our lives that John was actually excited about going into Lidl. He suggested we forgot about the marina for the day and got the groceries and headed back to the beach at Luz to try out our new purchases….it was the far less stressful option.
Jak, my son, had told us Lidl had a good range of seafood, and he was not wrong. We purchased some gianr prawns and some king prawns, Stirfry, oil, and a number of other items to tide us over a few meals. After all it was Monday and we always have stir fried king prawns on a Monday !!!!!

It was as easy to get back to our apartment as it was going, in fact it took about 8 minutes. We off loaded our groceries and changed into swim suits. I quickly made a picnic and we were ready to go again. Back in the car and down to the beach…..oh no…. It was the first time the parking was all full….we said we’d give it 10 minutes, and sure enough after 7 minutes a couple wandered back to their large UK plates Audi and off they went and in we pulled….yipeee.. A 1 minute walk had us setting up camp on the beach. Chairs out and what a pleasurable lunch we had. After lunch I walked down to the sea and paddled along. It was a tad cold but not too bad. Joh said he was people watching, but I caught him having a snooze !!! . Later he also had a quick paddle. It was a wonderful way to spend the afternoon.


When we returned to the apartment we were greeted by our doorstep guests….a nest full of swallows.

We had a quiet evening with home cooked stirfry prawns and some prime tv and a few games of cards. We felt as if we’d had “a busy old day” . Another lovely relaxing time in the Portuguese sun.

Portugal & Southern Spain – Sunday 11th May – Exploring Luz

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We were awoken by the sound of the bird chorus…….there is a nest full of Swallows right outside our front door, on top of the security camera…hopefully we’ll be able to share a picture with you over the forthcoming days. On opening the electric shutters the bright blue sunny sky showed a promise of a wonderfully warm day. Feeling ready for breakfast we googled the nearest supermarket and off we went in our spacious chariot. It wasn’t difficult to find and now we understand the basic oneway system we are getting around easily.
We found the Baptista Supermarket with its spacious carpark. For the then and now we bought a couple of croissants and a couple of sausage rolls. We also got yogurts, fruit, bread, butter and marmite for future breakfasts and Portuguese rolls, cheese, ham and salami for lunches, water, Coke Zero and a few yum, yums to snack on…all of which came to €52 …. Our much cheaper. preference to eating out for breakfast and lunch and also the reason we get an apartment rather than always having a hotel room…it’s nice to mix and match a bit…

We took our breakfast down to the beach front and sat eating it overlooking a beach volleyball game and a great sea view backdrop.

With breakfast out of the way we took a leisurely stroll along the promenade. We are surprised how quiet it is. There are a few, mostly British holidaymakers around but pleasantly quiet and uncrowded. We stopped at a bar and had a couple of Coke zeros whilst watching the world go by…..there are no chairs for hire on the beach and quite a few people had their own deck chairs…a short term investment we may need to make. Some brave soles were venturing into what was obviously a very chilly sea. A british cycling club embarrassingly came past ringing their bells and telling walkers to “stand aside”……. How rude…..a few dog walkers met up and a few kids were rock pooling…altogether a wonderful way to spend a morning – people watching…

We returned to the apartment and dropped the food off before driving down the hill to the apartments pool area and taking up residency on sunloungers for an hour or two. A late lunch of ham and cheese rolls was had on our balcony overlooking the village and the sea. WhatsApp calls home brought us up to date with family news before a much needed siesta…… we must have been tired as we woke in-time to go for supper!!! I had researched another restaurant on the sea front. But when we got there it was shut…may be because it was a Sunday or because the season is only just beginning. So we wandered back to A Concha. We were greeted like long lost friends and sat, on our request, inside as the evenings we find a little chilly. The kind owner suggested a fish Cataplana – stew, which was absolutely delicious and huge….we followed it with a mousse and gateau.

We are now quite used to the short drive back up the steep winding, narrow road and retired back to our apartment. We watched some Prime TV and had a few camels of “ Five Crowns” before retiring to bed. A great first full day In Luz, Portugal.

Portugal & Spain 2025. – Day 1- On the way….

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We left home at 9.00 am Saturday 10th May 2025. I drove John, the two cases and 2 hand luggage’s to the station. Then I returned home parked the car and walked to the station….not because we’re lazy but because we were trying to preserve our energy for the long airport walks.
We took the 9.36 train to Luton…trust us to chose a day when the line was closed from Luton. Disembarking the train a kind member of the platform staff carried my suitcase up the steps because the train had stopped in the only platform without a lift!!. A quick taxi ride for £15 took us up to Luton Airport.
We soon self checked ourselves and our cases in. Then found seats in the departure lounge for the 2.45 hour wait…..We had lunch early and were astounded that 2 burgers with chips was £21… it’s probably 10+ years since we’ve had a Burger King and it will certainly be more than that, if ever, before we have another. No problem boarding the plane and we fortunately had 3 seats to ourselves…

The flight was uneventful and we seemed to be the only plane arriving at Faro airport. We made our way to Avis car hire. Although we had used Holiday Autos to book the car, it was exactly half the price of booking direct with Avis, even though it was a Avis car. Unfortunatly the Ford Kuga we had booked was no longer stocked and we had to take a brand new Nissan Qashqai with only 2900km on the clock……I had to ask the helpful staff how to get into reverse !!!!! Then we were off and on our way…The A22 is a good road and we tanked it along to Lagos and followed the. Signs to Luz….Only then did our instructions fail us and as we drove around the narrow cobbled streets, we had no idea where we were heading for. Eventually we saw an aging couple taking an early evening walk and we stopped and asked them the way. They had very little English and we have no Portuguese……after a lot of hand gestures they stopped talking and I expectantly got into the back of car….where upon we had a delightful 15 minutes of hand gestures from the back seat…what a gem this couple were. We weren’t actually that far from the apartment complex Baka Da Luz. But the streets are mostly one way due to their narrowness. The couple showed us the reception and got out of the car. I gestured I would drive them back but they gave us the thumbs up and set of back up the hill walking…..We thanked them profusely.
On entering the reception we were greeted by the receptionist… who promptly showed us on a map where our apartment was. It was on the 2 nd floor and the furthest away from all the amenities, down a very steep hill. I asked if there was one closer to which I was told “ you booked and economy, this is the economy apartment” ….Well!! Firstly I booked a one bedroom apartment on booking.com and it was £650 it didn’t say anything about “ economy”….. and secondly I’d really have liked to give the receptionist a lesson in “ welcoming behaviour” !!!
Anyway, we drove to our apartment, knowing that we were going to be driving backwards and forwards as there was no way we were walking backwards and forwards up the hill several times a day. The apartment had a lift, so all good there. It is huge, a nice big lounge, dinning room, master bedroom with en-suite including a bath tub and a separate shower bathroom. The kitchen has everything we need. There is also a spiral stairway with two extra bedrooms up there…..ummmm a one bedroomed apartment with seating, dining table and bedrooms for 6 …..hey Ho it suits us fine.

By now it was 7.30 pm and with growling tummies we drove down to the beach front. What a pleasure to find a carpark and a row of restaurants. We selected “A Concha”, as I had read it was good on trip advisor. We ate inside as it was a tad chilly outside. We both choose fish, John had sea bass and I had rare tuna. We had a Coke Zero each and a rather naughty but extremely nice dessert…all for the princely sum of €56 .

Thankfully our earlier guides had given us a good understanding of the village centre and we managed to navigate the one-way system back to our front door with ease. An early night was required as we both felt the tiredness that airports tend to cause…. A great day to the start of our 18 day adventure.

Caribbean 2024 Day 1 & 2

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Yesterday we set off from home for a 3 week holiday. It is to celebrate our 10th Wedding Anniversary. Those of you who know us will remember John proposed to me in the Caribbean.

We flew directly to Miami..good flight…spoilt by the huge queue to get through immigration….just under 2 hrs we made it through…for the first time ever we used Uber for a lift to our hotel in Fort Lauderdale…it was $68 a good price…..how were we to know that there are several Marriott Courtyards of Federation Highway !! Another Uber for $21 got us to the right one. We were exhausted and went straight to bed…..Unfortunately our old red 10 year old cases had expired and we had brand new John Lewis yellow ones….one is already smiling at us!!

We woke up very early 3.00am ….Uk time was 7.00 am body clock all adrift!
After the necessary trip to the bathroom we both managed another long sleep and finally made it down for breakfast at 9.30am…USA time. We used our new skill to call another Uber and for $45 he took us to the port…dropping us at pier 21 to embark on the Enchanted Princess. Wow!!!… to say we were amazed is an understatement…the queue for the terminal went right the way to the end of the pier and back around again. It took us an hour to join the end of the queue and another hour and three quarters to embark on the ship…nearly 3 hours most of it queueing in the hot sun….come on Princess that is not good enough…..they should have allocated embarkation time slots like they used to, so that customs scanning doesn’t get overwhelmed … the actual embarking with Princess staff and getting our medallions was only a matter of minutes.
After dropping our carry-on bags off in our cabin…..an obstructed view balcony especially selected as it looks over the middle of the roof of the lifeboat…so I can’t look down and feel seasick…..there is always method in my madness!!! ….we hotfooted it up on to the sun deck for a Key West Cooler mocktail…”Cheers everyone!” And a light lunch – hummus, pitta bread, olives salad. Followed by fresh melon and pineapple…….lovely….two glasses of water and we are ready to fight the crowds for a slot on top deck to watch the sail away……..The usual array of singing, dancing, shouting, cheering, the “love boat tune” played on the ships horn and the pilot boats guided us out of the port 50 minutes late but yeah!!!! We are on our way.

Deciding we needed a rest we descended to our cabin….and our suitcases were already inside awaiting the unpacking….John kindly helped me and we soon had it all in the draws and wardrobes and the cases stashed neatly under the bed. Our cabin Steward for the next 20 nights came and introduced himself…”Lucky” from the Philippines. I think we are lucky because he instantly said he’d change the bar fridge for Diet Coke and he went and got us a kettle for our early morning coffee….which incidentally I bring with us….he also made certain that our shower has a flexible removal pipe, as I don’t like the fixed ones which don’t allow you to deep clean individual areas!!!!! I was very impressed with him so he will be lucky as I can already feel a big tip going his way..

So far so good….we have booked a table for supper at 6.20 every evening, so hopefully we won’t have to queue…but if we do we do…..

Two sea days now, then an island which is new to me..Tortola….but in the mean time let’s eat, drink and be merry…..

Day 9- 4th June 2024-Athens – End of Greek Island Cruise and other Places

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it’s taken me over a week to get around to our final day of this cruise and disembarkation…..the reason being we both picked up “Cabin Cough” on the cruise and it took us a week to get over it….I often seem to get it cruising, it’s the air conditioning which brings it on and this time we had an inside cabin….a never again scenario…….The evening before we had put our cases outside our door before midnight….a much better time than cruise lines which want them before 9.00 pm….When we got up in the morning they had bern magicked away. We had to leave our cabin by 8.00am and we went down to the restaurant for breakfast. We then sat in a lounge. We had requested a late disembarkation. The ship for the first time all cruise was relatively quiet. At 10.00 am we wandered off the ship and down to the baggage collection …our suitcases looked a little lonely all on their own in area 21….but hey they were both still there, so that was good news.
We ad found out, onboard that the ship did offer an airport transfer at 2.30 pm which would really have suited us but it hadn’t been advertised on their excursions or transfer so I don’t know how we or our travel agent were supposed to know about it…it would have been a great deal cheaper than our excursion was, which we booked through DialaFlight who had booked it through Viator.

Anyway ….we sat outside waiting for our driver for our excursion to Cape Sounia & Temple of Poseidon. We had selected this excursion as it was an area we hadn’t seen near Athens and also it was advertised as between 4 and 5 hours so we wouldn’t have to spend as long at the airport. On the dot of 10.30am a smart gentleman carrying a sign with our name on arrived and introduced himself as John. He quickly went off and bought the car around. It was a Mercedes’ cream coloured taxi. …..Off we went along the coast which was full of pretty coves and mariners occupied by some very fancy yatchs and pleasure cruisers.

We stopped off at a “hidden gem” …a large lake which was filled with from hot water springs attached to an intricate cave system…..it was quite fascinating, a bit smelly but we soon got used to the slight rotten eggs aroma you often get with hot water swims…we wished we’d known we were stopping here as we would have kept our costumes and towels out.

We stopped again for a view of the Temple Poseidon across the bay on the top of the headland.

We continued to the Temple car park. Although it’s an easy walk up some shallow well spaced steps I didn’t feel up to it, so John went on his own. He paid €10 at a kiosk and up he went.

The Temple of Poseidon is approx 70 Km away from Athens. It is deemed an important sight aprt from the archaeological remains, Cape Sounion is also famous for its beautiful sunset and the great views of the Aegean Sea…….it is the last point you see as you sail away, on the southernmost tip of the Attica peninsula.  In the past, sailors revered the sea god, Poseidon to grant them safety and fortune on their long voyages.

Made entirely of white marble, it was erected in the middle of the 5th century BC and built to honour Poseidon, god of the sea.The first version of the temple was built during the Archaic Period but it was destroyed by the Persians in 480 BC. It was rebuilt around 440 BC. The temple was 13 columns long and 6 columns wide. Unfortunately, not all columns stand until today. A 5-meter-tall statue of Poseidon used to stand inside the temple. Nowadays, the only part of it that has survived is displayed in the Museum in Athens.

John returned raving about the views and how unbelievable it felt to be amongst something so old. We had a drink and returned to Driver John and the car. We had now seen everything included in our tour so Driver John took us to the airport….unfortunately our tour had only taken just three and a half hours…..we could hardly ask to go around the route again ….we had enjoyed the tour but we were a little disappointed that it was so short…there had been a lot of tours for this length of time at a much cheaper price but we had selected this one to use up some of the time before our flight.

We arrived at the airport at 2.00pm and fortunately found two of only a handful of seats….and there we sat…..we couldn’t do anything because we had our large suitcases with us as well as our hand luggage…the desk for luggage drop didn’t open until 6.00 pm …We sat out the 4 hours … at about 5.00 pm a queue started at the baggage check in for Easy Jet ….we didn’t get in it straight away as there were two flights going out before ours….but as they didn’t open the check in until 6.

John eventually joined the queue and after and hour and a half I joined him for the last 15 minutes. By now we knew the flight prior to ours was 2 hours late and ours was 30 minutes late…..what seemed like forever and a day passed and eventually we boarded the plane and had a further 50 minute delay….Thankfully immigration, baggage and customs were quick at Gatwick and we our driver Albert was waiting for us…we walked through our front door totally and utterly exhausted at spot on 2.00 am…….what a journey …..no wonder we were both ill for a week !!!!!…”Avoid Athens airport at all costs” is the reminder engraved firmly on my brain…..never, never again…..and as for the actual cruise….well, I’ll do a good and bad points follow up to this blog shortly….thanks for travelling along with us hope you enjoyed the tour…