The town of Albufeira in the Portuguese Algarve

Monday 28 April 2014
Probably the hottest day ever, ever, EVER! Well, maybe not, but it felt like it to me. It was over 32 degrees for sure and felt even hotter without much of a breeze. Luckily for my old body which battles very much in heat, I had decided not to take my camera that day, so was able to walk unemcumbered. We used Alan's camera.

The shuttle bus from Clube Albufeira (our timeshare resort) dropped us at the edge of town and we wandered in through an avenue of market stalls packed with scarves, beachwear, crotcheted tops, shoes, flea market nicnacs and this incredible sand sculpture:

It's hard to see the sculpture of an old fashioned ship from this photo

but the artist - who looked like he'd been plucked from an ancient

civilisation in South America somewhere - was having to constantly

maintain it with sand and water as the heat of the day was drying and cracking it.

Albufeira is an extremely popular town and area in The Algarve, so even at this time of year, tourists abound, and there were many, many bodies showing pink to red from too much sun already. I cringe to see lovely alabaster skins being dried out and browned, with little regard for how powerful a burning and drying tool the sun actually is. But I suppose it's like many smokers who believe that cancer won't happen to them ... or that it's so far into the distance and their old-age, that it doesn't matter. For once I can see the benefits of bottle-tans and orange skins.

The town square

This shot was taken further into the centre of town but you can

see how many clothes shops exist here, and all apparently doing well.

Oh yes - Alan needed his coffee and what did we find?

An Irish cafe "The Irish Harp" where they served us

excellent scones and coffee (water for me).

A slightly uphill stroll along the main upper tourist pedestrian mall brings you to a

downhill walk through a tunnel to the terrace above the beach.

Above and below ... the beach from the terrace

A quick study of the map of the town, as we sat on the walled terrace above the beach, showed us quite a walk upwards to see a bit of the town. As we gazed at the lines of thatched umbrellas bordering the most incredible lake-like and azure blue sea, even the incoming tide was doing it lazily, so it wasn't hard to join in and slope off into the very inviting restaurant for a long drink before lunch.

Sangria!

View of the sea from my seat on the restaurant terrace.

It's the first time I've ever been to a dingly-dangly raffia-adorned umbrella-type

place to eat with a dreamy seascape beyond ... and a jug of ice-cold

Sangria in front of me. It's a really hard life you know.

Even Alan was finding life hard.
You can see by the look on his face and
the lunch set before him.

We sat at that lunch table for more than two hours, thoroughly enjoying our own company, and our lunch, served very efficiently. I must say again that I really like the Portuguese people. They are down-to-earth, no-nonsense folk who are pleasant and efficient, never rushing you or showing annoyance at bumbling tourists (like ourselves!). They seem to have a quiet self-assurance and totally non-invasive self-confidence. Way to go Portugal!

After lunch we started the climb .....

... up ....

and up ...


... until the beach took on a more far-away view

The next hour or so was spent just wandering around the village, almost empty at this time of siesta, taking photographs, appreciating flowers, and failing to rouse a couple of cats. Enjoy the gallery of pics .....

We were exhausted and hot by the time we got down again to the town square. The shuttle bus had dropped us at the bus station that morning, so instead of waiting for the over-packed shuttle back to Clube Albufeira we caught a public transport bus back. The distance back, as the stork flies (no crows in Portugal from what I can see), is hardly more than 2 kms but the trip took us nearly an hour. And we loved it! The driver wove in and out of various suburbs, with 10 minutes breather at another bus station, and finally he dropped us off with a cheery smile, at the gate of the resort. For a €1.40 bus ticket each we had enjoyed a great tour of the locality which no tourist facility could have given us. So worth it!

The water sizzled as we dipped our hot selves into the pool .....

Clube Albufeira in Portugal's Algarve

19 April 2014
Recent windy weather had pointed a sign in the wrong direction so it took us half an hour or more to actually find Clube Albufeira on the Algarve, our home for the next four weeks. It's within 2 kms of the town of Albufeira and right opposite Albufeira Campsite .... which we may use on a possible future trip.

This is our last timeshare holiday, and because we haven't been able to use it for the last three years or so, we've accumulated enough points for a whole four weeks of this luxury resort! Since buying Milly the motorhome in July 2013 (last year) we've taken to "glamping" and motorhoming like Winnie the Pooh to his pot of honey, so decided to get rid of the timeshare I've had for about thirty-two years. The annual subscriptions have got quite out-of-hand - as have the utility and deposit costs at many of the timeshare resorts - and we'd far rather spend that money on keeping Milly ship-shape each year. I have to say the timeshare has been very worthwhile through the years, taking us to many places within Southern Africa (the Eastern Transvaal, the Western Transvaal, Zimbabwe, Durban's Umhlanga Rocks, Durban's Ballito Bay, the Drakensberg Mountains in Kwa Zulu Natal, Namibia, Cape Town, Langebaan - on the coast north of Cape Town) and Europe (Portugal, Spain, Ireland, Wales, Scotland and England) ... but the time has come ....

We're in a very comfortable studio apartment where the bedroom area is open-plan with the "lounge" (bench couch) and diningroom. The kitchen and bathroom are separate with a small area housing a bunk bed (which we have stuffed full of things from Milly). We're in a corner apartment with two sets of french doors opening onto their own patios, one of which looks out to the humungous swimming pool.

This is exactly how we like the pool ... empty! Selfish. Selfish.

And to enjoy it like this, on the days when we're not going out somewhere,

we get up early and slink in before breakfast and the sun-bake-rush,

for a bit of an exercising swim. I'm also a floater and love to just

hang in the water, on my back, looking like a drowned person, but

Alan's too fidgety ... exercise and out is his routine. Good thing too -

got to keep him out of the sun with his fair skin.

This shot shows you the little tapa cafe next to the pool.

We've only been there once for a drink and a pizza.

Stunning at night time!

If no-one parks in "our" parking spot, we can see Milly from our patio.

More idle shots taken while the brain was going off duty:

The bird life is great here. It's ages since I've seen Sparrows (probably since I left Kwa Zulu Natal because there aren't many, if any, in Cape Town either); there are loads of Seagulls of course; a biggish bird that I can't name but he is light brown, has blue on his wings, white on his undercarriage and a black cap on the top of his head; and a couple of pairs of Hoepoe, like this little fella.

The pics aren't that clear because I couldn't get close enough to him.

They were taken with my favourite 300 mm lens from the

balcony of our apartment.

At sundowners, around about 7pm, just as the last folk leave the poolside, hosts of Sparrows dive-bomb the water for a sip of their sundowners. At the edge of the pool, the water drains out and over a ledge leaving a lovely swimming ledge for small birds. At least a dozen Sparrows duck and dive and shake and splash around having a wonderful swim.

There's one Seagull, a beauty of a specimen, who has a float and a swim, also in the same part of the pool each evening. He too ducks his head right in, shakes it all about, flaps his wings, then stands on the side preening his wet feathers. You can almost see the glee on his face. He's the most active of the Seagulls. The others just dip their toes in on the ledge of the outer edge. Shame. They don't know what they're missing!
(14 May 2014 .... last evening I rushed out and took quite a few pics of my swimming seagull. I've posted most of them at the bottom of this blog as my own little treasure of memory - and only one here)

Not much else to tell you about our lazy month here and I'm not going to bore you with details of the resort which you can pick up from the website. We need to count the pennies so tend to go out for a day and stay home for two days - blogging, reading, sketching, painting (hmmm, not much of that has taken place I'm afraid!) and a bit of swimming.

Enough ... I'd rather get on to the other blogs and tell you about our days out and the two-night trip to Lisbon!

Practical info:

http://www.clubealbufeira.com/

My personal gallery of my special swimming seagull: