Greetings one and all.  Its hard to believe that 24 days in Portugal is quickly coming to an end.  Its been one great holiday full of happy memories and pleasant surprises.  Tomorrow morning we leave Tavira and we're off to Spain.
The big bus that connects The Algarve to Spain does not run on Sunday.  To make the trip a success we decided to test the route ourselves.  On Tuesday, we took the train to the border town of Villa Real De Santo Antonio.  There we found the ferry and crossed the Rio Guadiania over to the Spanish border town of Ayamonte.  It turned out to be the hottest day of our stay here.  The temperature rose to 29 degrees C. and we really found it hot.  In "crisis" such as this, its always best to sit in an outdoor cafe and order a nie cold Sagres beer.  This is exactly what we did.  The town of Ayamonte certainly has its traffic but there are some really wonderful parks with beautiful Spanish tiles on the benches.  We needed to check out this route because here in Portugal and Spain most things just shut down for Sunday.  The people here sure know how to enjoy life.  None of that Canadian "work until you drop" and then "shop until you drop" for them.  Locals love to sit, talk, drink their expressos and beer and watch the world go by.  Oh yes, they work too but they sure know how to make the best of their lives.  Cherrill thinks that the weather has much to do with the way they live.

By the way, Cherrill just went off to have her hair done by some fancy hairstyle guy named "Euardo".  Hope that all turns out well.  We also plan to mail our first parcel home this morning.

A couple of days ago, we took the train to Faro, whih is about 40 mins. away from Tavira.  From there we took a local bus to the small village of Estoi to see a castle in ruins.  Too bad it was closed.  They were working on it to become a posada.  A posada is a nice, fancy hotel for tourists.  About 800 meters away we visited an old Roman Villa where they had some fancy fish mosaics.  The city of Faro had a church called Our Lady of Carmel.  Behind this church there was a chapel with the bones and skulls of 1243 monks.  Its interesting and maybe sad to think that someday all of us will be looking just like them.  I think the lesson here is to enjoy life and live it to the fullest before we run out of time and "join" them.

The weather is sunny and clear day after day.  When we are home we enjoy our coffee outside and do most of our reading there also.  We have satellite TV but don't watch it.  Its just too boring.  Tonight Cherrill and I are going to say goodbye to Portugal by going to a nice little fish restaurant and having grilled codfish.  This is the same restaurant where we had the fried hake fish the other day. 

By the way, we did a naughty thing the other day.  We bought a cask of wine.  The cask was 5 litres and cost us only 5 CND dollars.  That works out to only 75 cents a bottle of wine.  It was so good and cheap that we finished the entire cask in 3 evenings.  Oh Yes, we did solve all the world's problems while consuming this most Portuguese of beverages. LOL

Better go and enjoy the sunshine.  I have to meet Cherrill after Euardo and his stable of girls finish with Cherrill and we have to mail that parcel.  Thanks for reading.  We will report again when we spend a week or so in Spain.  Adios!

Onto Next