Tag: algarve

Reflection of 2025

Published on by 2jsworldofadventure1 Comment

Firstly and foremost John and I wish you happy festivities wherever you are in the world .

2025 started slowly for us. John had two eye operations which slowed our travelling down. We also had a February deadline for another of our books – “50 Gems of Bedfordshire” it will be published February 2026 by Amberley Books. …I think this will be about Johns 30th book with Amberley Publishers…and my 2nd!

In April we headed to Norfolk with my Dad. We hired a lovely bungalow near Sheringham for a week. What a lovely week it was, meandering around our beautiful countryside.

May saw John and I heading to Portugal and Southern Spain….we fell in love with Praia de Luz ….wonderful apartment for a week, super beach, restaurants and “Jackson Mystery Tours” around the countryside….(that’s Johns name for exploring and getting lost).

A wonderfully relaxing and “chill out” time.

We travelled up to Spain and spent time in an intriguing village called El Rocio….a real throw back place on the edge of a national park which is home to the highest number of Iberian Lynx in Spain…needless to say we didn’t see one…but we did very much enjoy our time there.

We travelled on up to Seville for a week…hiring a strange apartment in a residential block. We enjoyed the Cathedral, horses and carriage sight seeing, a river cruise and a flamenco show.

Driving back into Portugal we stayed a week in a holiday complex apartment near Albuferia….ummm not one of our best accommodation choices…. But we made the most of it with beach days and exploring the area.

Back in the UK we had a variety of days out with Dad, such as a coffee on a longboat on the Grand Union Canal

The end of July we headed for Devon. A fantastic occasion which saw my sister as a truly radiant bride as she married Mark….a day which was such a happy occasion.

September came and yippee! we were off to South Africa…..

Much joy as we met up with good friend Gill and our dearest Cora

Then off to Kruger for 3 weeks of heaven…..this year we started at the most southern point and went right up to the northern tip……Mother Nature blessed us and we saw some truly magnificent sights…

Our cameras didn’t stop clicking…but we did take a few shots of people..

And of course there were some fantastic sunsets…

Back to the UK we went with Dad to the New Forest in mid November…although it was cold it was still fabulous to see the ponies and we sat watching them on several occasions from what was my mums favourite spot….a joyful occasion we repeat every year…

As we reach the end of 2025 there is nothing left to say except to wish all our followers a Very Happy 2026…we hope your year is filled with adventures, laughter and love.

Jenny & John

Portugal & Southern Spain trip – Day 15-18, May 24th-28th….The Algarve & Home

Published on by 2jsworldofadventure1 Comment

We woke up to gnats/fleas everywhere…horrible…we sprayed again, choked on the poisonous fumes and realised the apartment was infested. After a quick breakfast we drove to Santa Eulalia Beach. With a carpark and hotel on the edge of the sand, it looked lovely. We pitched our beach chairs on the edge of the soft sand and the firmer wet sand. Here we took up residency, on the narrow strip. A few people were in the sea, which according to their squeals was very cold and it was also a steep drop so we decided to enjoy the sun in the dry…….That is until a big wave came and we both jumped up rescuing handbag and camera bag from the surf!!!! What a pair of muppets we are as we made a hasty retreat a yard or two higher up the beach.

As it looked as if we were going to be sat in the water again, we returned to the car and headed to the apartments hotel swimming pool. It was wonderfully empty with some good shaded sun-loungers…a lovely afternoon.

In the evening we headed back to the Golf resort across the road again. This time I had Grilled Veal…..or so it said on the menu, actually it was a really nice sirloin steak, with sweet potato fries and roasted vegetables, all for €18 . John had grilled tuna with sweet roasted potatoes and a tomato relish for €13.

Over the next couple of days we did much the same, sleep, sunbathe, eat and repeat. We had a drive into Albufeira and we found a nice ice cream place on the beach. We ate at the same place each night….alternating between sea bass, tuna and steak, we shared a different salad as a starter each night ….it was a really pleasant restaurant….even though I managed to trip up an unnoticed step and skid seal like along the mosaic floor on my boobs !!!!!! Ouch !!!! But it didn’t deter us from going, the service was good, the food was excellent and the price was reasonable….we couldn’t have asked for more.

Our apartment continued to cause anxiety. The window which had given us a nice view was now violated by the apartment opposite having major building work which started at 8.00 am each morning. The tip for the builders rubble was directly below our window so the noise and the dust was a constant intrusion to our peace and quiet. The gnats/ fleas never stopped being present and it took 3 days for the company it was booked through to get back to us…by which time we only had one full day and two nights left …so it was all too little too late ..

On our final morning we were packed and ready to leave by 10.00 am the time we had agreed to meet the owner/ ground agent to give her the keys and to get our €100 deposit back…..the time came and went….at 11.30 I tried to phone her no reply, I WhatsApp her no reply. At 12.00 I tried phoning on WhatsApp and got a reply. As she spoke no English the conversation was difficult but I think she understood “ now, now” At 12.30 she arrived and gave us our €100 back. We showed her all the gnats and the builders skip etc, she just shrugged and couldn’t have cared less….after all she had, had our money. A little later she WhatsApp me and said please don’t say anything bad about the apartment….wow! Was she joking or not……we certainly wouldn’t want any other tourist to spend their hard earnt money or holiday time in such a noisy infested place….all we can say is steer clear of Sun & Serenity at Balaia Da Mar holiday resort…the rest of the resort is fine.
We headed off to the airport in Faro. Dropped the car off. We only had £40 to pay for the cross border fee and all was good. We found where the EasyJet baggage drop was and although our flight drop-off desk number wasn’t displayed yet we stood in the queue. When we got to the front, an hour later, we were told we were 15 minutes too early and stood aside to wait. Sure enough in 15 minutes time we were allowed to drop our cases off. We went through to departures and the security scanning was very fast. However when we got to immigration there was only one desk open for non-EU and as the majority of tourists were from the UK we queued for an hour and three quarters…..we had to let some people go ahead as their gate was closing…it was mayhem, eventually another desk opened and everyone cheered. Phew at last in the departure lounge only to find out out 8.50 pm take off was delayed until 10.30 pm….oh well…time for a Burger King as it was that or a sandwich.
Our flight took off about 10.40pm and was uneventful landing at 1.20 am. It took forever for the baggage to come through…the carousel started turning at 2.00am and our bags were fairly quickly retrieved……one of our brand new cases has once again got a huge dented corner…..what a nuisance… We had been going to get the train home but we were both exhausted and it was so late that we grabbed a taxi….at that time in the morning it cost us £81.00….hey Ho, we were home and ready for a great sleep in our own bed.
What a great holiday we had had….superb apartment, beach and restaurants in Luz……a wild experience in El Rocío, a great time in Seville and good sunbathing and nice food back in the Algarve…a lovely 18 days spent relaxing and exploring.

Thank you for once again following us…we hope you enjoyed our trip as much as we did.

Portugal & Southern Spain – Day 13 & 14 – 22nd & 23rd of May – Seville and Back to the Algarve.

Published on by 2jsworldofadventureLeave a comment

After such a busy day celebrating Johns birthday we were slow starting the day on Thursday. After a leisurely breakfast we wandered the maze of tiny cobbled streets to our favourite hotel…..at this point I must say if you’re going to Seville we thoroughly recommend The Saville Hotel Centre- looking the price up for our 3 nights we found an apartment was false economy, the hotel would only have been €30 extra and would have included breakfast…you live and learn. ….John dropped the rubbish off at a municipal refuse area ( as required by the apartment) and we hailed a taxi. €7 later we were outside the cathedral. We queued about 30 minutes and then bought tickets €14 for me and on the production of Johns passport €7 for proving he was over 65.
The cathedral is absolutely beautiful. We wandered around foe a couple of hours, delving into every nook and cranny, saying a few prayers in various chapels and enjoying the splendour of this religious treasure.

On leaving the cathedral at its rear end we wandered across the road to a taxi rank. On spying a tourist gift shop we browsed an purchased a Seville t-shirt for John and a flamenco style hair group for me…..then would you believe it we caught sight of the bottle of Orange wine, my son, Jak had been asking us to get him.

Grabbing a taxi we headed across to the oldest part of Seville, not far from the theatre we had been to the day before. Jak had told us of a restaurant he really rated.

El Rinconcillo is the oldest restaurant/bar in Seville and it is totally heaving in character. We had to queue to get in. Jak had said the tapas were amazing, it seemed plenty of others agreed with him. However the tapas is served with you standing at the barrels which we didn’t really want to do. So we managed to blag a table in the restaurant on the same level as the tapas and bar. The waiter spoke superb English. The place had the same high class food and seeped with history as Rules in Covent Garden London has …so we were delighted and intrigued. We had some nice fish…not certain what it was but it was divine and followed it with coffee cake. The kind waiter pored me a taster of Orange wine so I knew what we had bought Jak. Altogether it was a lovely lunch.

We got a taxi back to the apartment before having a leisurely siesta…..we really had, had a nice time in Seville. Another famous city to tick off our list.

The following day we packed up, said goodbye to our apartment and dragged our cases along the cobbles to the carpark. A kindly gentleman translated the ticket machine for me and I had soon paid the €56 for the 3 days parking. We set the cars sat nav up to take us to Albufeira….it managed to get us out of Seville without taking us down any tiny roads for which I was very grateful.
We arrived at our next apartment Sun & Serenity which was on the Balaia Da Mar hotel grounds….there are lots of privately owned apartments on hotel complexes in Portugal. The hotel receptionist kindly spoke to the agent in Portuguese and told us we were too early. An hour later we were allowed to go to the apartment. We met the lady and she had brought a young g English speaking man with her. Well!!!!! What can we say….pictures do lie ….it didn’t have a balcony …the view was through a window…ok we can live with that, there was a bit of a divider between the lounge, kitchen area and the bedroom…but basically all one room and the bathroom was very bijou……the shower door opening just enough to squeeze in sideways…one boob at a time so to speak….. the loo was behind the door but ok it was livable with….but!!!!! The whole window ( the only window in the place) was covered in hundreds of fleas…..umm…..they knew I meant business when I said “NO” after a three way discussion for nearly 30 minutes we agreed to wait 2 hours, if they got rid of the fleas ( evidently to recent wet then hot weather had caused an influx throughout 5he area but they only last a couple of days) we would stay and if not they would “try!!!!” To get us a refund…..those of you who know me will understand that I made it very clear that I was not amused. However 2 hours later the lady came back with plug in repellents and sprayed and it did do the trick…it certainly exterminated them immediately…..I’ve been using the spray ever since…. So we are in this pleasant enough hotel complex, the view from the window is of lush gardens and magpies chasing seagulls…it’s very green and nothing really to complain about. We went across the road to the Balaia Golf resort for supper. I had stayed there many years ago. The food was very nice at a reasonable price so it will become our go to place…..next to it is a Spar supermarket where we stocked up on water and breakfast goods….Another excellent day on our road trip.

Portugal & Souther Spain trip- Thursday 15th May 2025- Day trip to the west coast.

Published on by 2jsworldofadventureLeave a comment

Our usual slow start to the day was greeted with cloudy skies and lots of cooler wind. A definite day for heading inland and exploring…..it was a Jackson mystery tour. John kindly kept me to slightly larger roads having given me the heebie-jeebies a couple of days ago. We set off towards Lagos before turning towards Lisbon. We then took the road to Aljezur a rather quaint village nestled either side of the river.

John then directed me down a much less used road…there were more filled potholes than actual road…

I did wonder where we were off t. We passed a couple of cars coming the other way, a small shrine, a couple of crofts and a few dilapidated buildings before coming to some mudflats. I hesitantly drove on, and on, and on….after all the road was wide enough to do a 12 point turn!!! So I wasn’t going to have to reverse for kms! We caught up with a car in front who was also hesitantly driving. Suddenly we cane on to a newish piece of two lane tar road…wow…the bone rattling stopped. About a km later we turned a corner and wow…wow…wow….the most magnificent bay of pristine white sand…..and a very well layer out carpark and a cafe with viewing deck…..my goodness what a surprise. There was a surf school giving beginners lessons at the far end of the bay and at the end of the where the cafe sat was some black spiky lava like rock….it reminded us of “Hell” on Grand Cayman Island in the Caribbean.

It was still very windy and because I needed the toilet we decided to have a Coke Zero in the cafe.

On leaving the cafe we noticed the beautiful wild flowers and the information board.

We retraced our tracks down the bone shaker road back on to the main road and headed towards Sagres. John told me to look out for a right turn to some unpronounceable place in about 11 kms time. Sure enough the sign to Carrapateira appeared. This was a much more touristic place and we followed the sign to “ Pontal”. We passed several car parks and continued to climb up a narrow road. At the top lots of cars were parked. There was a magnificent view of a busy beach below with kite surfing amongst many of the activities in offer. We sat in the car, out of the wind and enjoyed our picnic.

We decided not to take the raised walkway down as coming back looked like activities made for the young and fit!!! Having enjoyed our sightseeing we took the road on to Vila Do Bispo. Enjoying the variety of landscapes.

We then took the road back to Luz which we had travelled previously on our return from Sagres.
Prior to setting off in the morning we had quickly gone to the supermarket to buy some fillet steak…..after about 8 days of eating only fish we decided a treat was needed….2 delicious large fillet steaks for €13.60.. We had these with hot new potatoes, beetroot and salad….followed by Portuguese custard tarts……perfect…..in fact a perfect ending to a perfect day.

Portugal & Southern Spain Adventure – Day 5 – Wednesday 14th May – A Day on the Beach- Luz.

Published on by 2jsworldofadventureLeave a comment

We didn’t rush this morning as the sky was very blue and the sun was hot. We made some nice brioche rolls up with ham, cheese and salami and took some crisps for our lunch…I wonder are you “A crisps in, or a crisps out” person…..John is definitely a crisps out where as I am very much a crisps in……We drove down to the beach, found a parking place straight away and hey presto we had quickly taken up residency….the wind was fairly brisk but the sun was very hot.
We both decided to take a dip so we strode out with determination and confidence to the edge of the sea…”ouch” cold or what…..but we persisted John up to his calves and me up to my bottom…after a mere few seconds we looked at each other and both said “nah”. It was a very hasty retreat back to the ever faithful warm comfort of the chairs. We sat for an hour or so watching a few extremely brave soles stride in dip their shoulders under and run out.
Just before lunch I decided to give it another go . This time I got as deep as my chest before once again beating a hasty retreat…..time for lunch …..

Whilst eating lunch a hopeful beggar arrived but we refrained from giving him anything.

By 2.00 pm John decided I was getting too lobster pink and we left the beach and returned to the apartments pool, where there was plenty of shade. I finally got a much yearned for swim…in the pool!,

Then time for a siesta back at the apartment. For those of you who know John, you will know he always denies having 40 winks……..the proof is in the picture ……

We decided to have a drive around Luz before supper. We had hoped to find another nice restaurant. Every eatery seemed to be pizza or tapas or 2 Indian restaurants. So we saw the church and returned to A Concha for a nice meal. We were peckish so we both had shrimp pate followed by grilled sea bass and then I had apple tart and John had chocolate cake and ice cream, washed down with a Coke Zero each…..all for the sum of €64.40. This really is a great place with superb friendly service and very reasonably priced for the quality of the food……our seafood diet continues.

Another wonderful day in the Algrave.