Tag: life

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

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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.

Day 3 – Sunday 12th May 2024- Par, Cornish Staycation.

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Big shout out to Pendeen Holiday House….lovely comfy beds, windows which open to allow air in and heat out and a shower powerful enough to easily get shampoo out of hair!!!! The former and later are rarities in many holiday home rentals……so a great nights sleep and a slow leisurely breakfast. After which we drove around to Snowlands fishing lakes……we were walking down memory lane as John and I used to bring the motorhome/RV here. We had a nice walk around one of the lakes, seeing some Canadian goose goslings, late bluebells and lovely yellow irises.

We had already decided to have a slow day. So after our walk we dropped John at the Roselyn Bus garage so he could take some photos for his flicker transport site, and we nipped to the CoOp to get Dads paper and a small bag of sugar for his coffee, as I’d forgotten to order it. We drove on around to the St Blazey level crossing so John could take a photo of an unusual working….it was a little late but both Dad and John enjoyed seeing it.

Then it was time for the beach…..we parked up at Par beach and walked over the dunes onto the beach…it is always good seeing the sea and people enjoying the sand, sea, paddle boards etc makes you realise that Summer is well on its way…we’ve had 3 marvellous days of sun.

We stopped at the Cognitive Coffee bar in the beach car park……we all had Americano Coffees….unfortunately the warm brown water scored very lowly on our usual ‘how many out of 10’ coffee tasting….. Dad gave it a generous 4/10 and John gave it 1/10…I refused to be drawn because you can’t give a negative score !!!!! At £9.30 for 3 cups of dishwater we defiantly felt had!!
We had booked Sunday Lunch at The Welcome Inn in Par….it’s diagonally opposite to Pendeen House and we soon learnt that they are the owners of the Holiday Rental. I was delighted to see a whole array of ciders on tap…..I don’t usually drink but I occasionally have a nice cider and their Thatchers Gold Cider was delicious. We had a choice of 3 different roasts…Lamb, Turkey or Beef…we all opted for beef….Dad had what was called a small plate for £9.00 and John and I had Standard plates at £11.00……it was a real feast…I think I counted 10 different vegetables plus the meat, Yorkshire pudding and stuffing…..all beautifully cooked. Absolutely full to bursting we waddled back to the house for a lazy, sleepy afternoon and maybe a game of Rummikub later…if we can be bothered!!!

What a lovely relaxing day we have had ….more planned for tomorrow.