Two centuries before Christ, there was a province called “Lusitania” which included all of Portugal, south of the Douro river, and all of Spain. We’ve never visited Portugal and have always wanted to take a river boat cruise in Europe so we decided on a cruise up the Douro river from Porto, Portugal to Spain. But where to begin our trip?
Last year my daughter went to the Algarve region for her 30th B-day and loved it. The best travel recommendations we’ve had in the past have come from family or friends so we decided to start our travels in the Algarve- the southern region of Portugal. We flew in to Lisbon on a red eye out of Dulles, picked up a Smart car, and drove 3 hours to the sleepy fishing village of Salema. You’ve probably never heard of Salema because it is not tourist oriented but does cater to folks on holiday, mainly from the UK. There are 5-6 good restaurants, a nice beach, a coffee-shop, mini-mart and not much else. It is an area they call ‘untainted’ unlike Lagos which is 12 miles to the east.
View from our lovely VRBO 3 bedroom apartment:
The town is typical Mediterranean with whitewashed stucco, tile roof, and decorative tile trim. Our first night we walked along the beach, visited the city center (which is only 2 streets!) and had dinner at a terrific bohemian pizza place- best olives outside of Italy.
After dinner it was a short walk up the hill and then up 50+ steps to our apartment. One thing to consider when AirBnB-ing or VRBO-ing, is hauling your fifty pound suitcases up 50+ steps. But for the price of a couple nights at a nice hotel in a touristy spot, we had a three bedroom apartment with an awesome view – the trade-offs one makes.
The next morning we picked up chocolate croissants ( so sorry we are not in France!) at the only pastelaria in town, took a leisurely walk on the beach and then hopped in the car and headed out west to explore more beaches and maybe the end of the known earth!
Our first stop was the famous surfing beach, Amado in the town of Carrapateira. This beach is huge and there were hundreds of newbies in surf camps as well as some seasoned surfers. This is the cold Atlantic so everyone was wearing a wet suit! Later we heard from a local that when they want to swim at a beach they head to counties on the warmer Mediterranean Sea.
Lots of beaches to explore- more in the next posts.
