Spain & Portugal Road Trip - Where would you go?
Discussion
Sorry this is such a slow saga but herewith the Big Daddy, the El Dorado. . .
Day 5 Casa Penhas Douradas to Albufeira. 450km
Could the roads get any better? The answer is yes. We had booked an apartment on the Algarve for the next couple of nights. So this meant heading out of the hills on Day 5. But rather than retrace our steps back through Manteigas I thought we should see more of the Serra Estrella.
So we took the N232 west again from the Casa Penhas Douradas towards Gouveia, but turned left off it for Sabuguerio, that I had visited the previous day. This is an unclassified road, but just as good as the N232. From there, it’s climbing all the way to – to our amazement – the Serra de Estrella ski park. Did you know that you could ski in Portugal? Neither did we.
But I was more interested in what lay beyond the ski slopes. At Sabuguerio we had picked up the N339. And therefore El Dorado. This was the daddy. The landscape is even more stark and open, with great sightlines and a mixture of straights and open sweepers climbing towards the ski area (2,000m).
After the Estrela ski area, the road descends to Covilhã. Not long after the summit, I said “This is it”. I recognised the exact stretch of road on that Catchpole video. So now you know. I feel a duty to tell you, but I hope that I don’t start a stampede. To be honest, I don’t think I will.
I have driven all over western Europe. Especially the mountains. Western Europe comprises really only a tiny corner of the Eurasian continent. I’m biased, but I think it contains the best scenery in the world. But it is also contains one of the densest population concentrations in the world. I defy anyone not to fall in love with the Alps. But the best roads are shut in the winter, and slammed with holidaymakers in campervans in the summer.
The Serra Estrela is an anomaly. On the one hand it isn’t really near anywhere you have probably heard of. (Although Portugal is a small country so you are never really far from anywhere.) On the other, the Serra de Estrela is not really far from stunning Salamanca in Spain (which we visited on the way back). And Coimbra and Porto – two great destinations – are not far to the west. Likewise Lisbon is 300km to the south - and the Algarve where we were headed - another 150km. But the Serra de Estrela is well off the beaten tourist track. There aren’t many hotels in the Serra Estrella, but the two we visited were world class – and because they aren’t in a honey pot location – not world-class priced.
These are all good reasons to visit. After all, the further away from everywhere else the further you have to drive to get there. And in Spain and Portugal that’s a good thing!
Covilhã is a fine prize to find after driving the best road in the world. Quite a contrast to Manteigas it is a bustling, cosmopolitan university town at the foot of the mountains. We really wanted to stop, but unsure how long it would take us to get the Algarve we pressed on,
Also tempted to swing into Lisbon we pressed on again. Of course we encountered no traffic at all – so arrived at our apartment in Albufeira at tea time. Despite being a stone’s throw from the centre of town, there was plenty of street parking right outside our apartment.
Apart from all the other pleasant surprises on this trip, another one was the fuel consumption in the GTS. Despite not exactly holding back in the mountains, we normally averaged over 30 mpg. Squeezing that out of a normally aspirated, 4 litre 6-cylinder car is quite an achievement from Porsche in my book.
‘Er outdoors had holidayed in the Algarve as child – when apparently Albufeira was barely more than a fishing village (difficult to believe today – although the town beach is also called the Fisherman’s Beach). Albufeira is what we used to call places like Brighton in Britain – ‘Raffish’.
Adjective:
Unconventional and slightly disreputable, especially in an attractive way.
"His raffish air"
- Oxford English dictionary
Perhaps that is because it is brim-full of Brits. Especially obvious are many chubby, pasty-looking middle-age British men who insist on sitting in beach-side restaurants without a shirt. Despite this (or perhaps because of this) there is a generally convivial ‘we’re here to have a good time’ atmosphere. Restaurants are plentiful, cheap compared to back home, and despite this and the tourists, the food is always good. I think that while some places use the presence of tourists to pass off any old crap, the Spanish and Portuguese just can’t help themselves. They won’t serve you something that they themselves wouldn’t enjoy.
Day 5 Casa Penhas Douradas to Albufeira. 450km
Could the roads get any better? The answer is yes. We had booked an apartment on the Algarve for the next couple of nights. So this meant heading out of the hills on Day 5. But rather than retrace our steps back through Manteigas I thought we should see more of the Serra Estrella.
So we took the N232 west again from the Casa Penhas Douradas towards Gouveia, but turned left off it for Sabuguerio, that I had visited the previous day. This is an unclassified road, but just as good as the N232. From there, it’s climbing all the way to – to our amazement – the Serra de Estrella ski park. Did you know that you could ski in Portugal? Neither did we.
But I was more interested in what lay beyond the ski slopes. At Sabuguerio we had picked up the N339. And therefore El Dorado. This was the daddy. The landscape is even more stark and open, with great sightlines and a mixture of straights and open sweepers climbing towards the ski area (2,000m).
After the Estrela ski area, the road descends to Covilhã. Not long after the summit, I said “This is it”. I recognised the exact stretch of road on that Catchpole video. So now you know. I feel a duty to tell you, but I hope that I don’t start a stampede. To be honest, I don’t think I will.
I have driven all over western Europe. Especially the mountains. Western Europe comprises really only a tiny corner of the Eurasian continent. I’m biased, but I think it contains the best scenery in the world. But it is also contains one of the densest population concentrations in the world. I defy anyone not to fall in love with the Alps. But the best roads are shut in the winter, and slammed with holidaymakers in campervans in the summer.
The Serra Estrela is an anomaly. On the one hand it isn’t really near anywhere you have probably heard of. (Although Portugal is a small country so you are never really far from anywhere.) On the other, the Serra de Estrela is not really far from stunning Salamanca in Spain (which we visited on the way back). And Coimbra and Porto – two great destinations – are not far to the west. Likewise Lisbon is 300km to the south - and the Algarve where we were headed - another 150km. But the Serra de Estrela is well off the beaten tourist track. There aren’t many hotels in the Serra Estrella, but the two we visited were world class – and because they aren’t in a honey pot location – not world-class priced.
These are all good reasons to visit. After all, the further away from everywhere else the further you have to drive to get there. And in Spain and Portugal that’s a good thing!
Covilhã is a fine prize to find after driving the best road in the world. Quite a contrast to Manteigas it is a bustling, cosmopolitan university town at the foot of the mountains. We really wanted to stop, but unsure how long it would take us to get the Algarve we pressed on,
Also tempted to swing into Lisbon we pressed on again. Of course we encountered no traffic at all – so arrived at our apartment in Albufeira at tea time. Despite being a stone’s throw from the centre of town, there was plenty of street parking right outside our apartment.
Apart from all the other pleasant surprises on this trip, another one was the fuel consumption in the GTS. Despite not exactly holding back in the mountains, we normally averaged over 30 mpg. Squeezing that out of a normally aspirated, 4 litre 6-cylinder car is quite an achievement from Porsche in my book.
‘Er outdoors had holidayed in the Algarve as child – when apparently Albufeira was barely more than a fishing village (difficult to believe today – although the town beach is also called the Fisherman’s Beach). Albufeira is what we used to call places like Brighton in Britain – ‘Raffish’.
Adjective:
Unconventional and slightly disreputable, especially in an attractive way.
"His raffish air"
- Oxford English dictionary
Perhaps that is because it is brim-full of Brits. Especially obvious are many chubby, pasty-looking middle-age British men who insist on sitting in beach-side restaurants without a shirt. Despite this (or perhaps because of this) there is a generally convivial ‘we’re here to have a good time’ atmosphere. Restaurants are plentiful, cheap compared to back home, and despite this and the tourists, the food is always good. I think that while some places use the presence of tourists to pass off any old crap, the Spanish and Portuguese just can’t help themselves. They won’t serve you something that they themselves wouldn’t enjoy.
PositronicRay said:
Santiago de compostela picos de europa and the Atlantic coast were highlights for me.
Bilbao, Picos de Europa, Alonso Museum at Oviedo, Santiago, Portugal, Marbella, Granada, track day at Guadix circuit near Granada and back to Bilbao. Fabulous fun in my beloved NA BBR turbo last May. Radical Kawasaki at Guadix
DangerDoom said:
Great write-up. Great video. Great car too... ideal for the trip. How was the return drive (or is that the next chapter)?
Thanks! It's been a struggle to find time to write this up - I might finish it just in time for the next 
The trip was kind of slow down and quick back so I could pack it all into 10 days. Mainly motorway on the return trip, but I will do a couple more posts covering it. There were one or two 'incidents'
threespires said:
Bilbao, Picos de Europa, Alonso Museum at Oviedo, Santiago, Portugal, Marbella, Granada, track day at Guadix circuit near Granada and back to Bilbao. Fabulous fun in my beloved NA BBR turbo last May.
Radical Kawasaki at Guadix
MX-5? That sounds like a great programme and Guadix looks interesting. Hadn't come across that.Radical Kawasaki at Guadix
DickDasterdly said:
threespires said:
MX-5? That sounds like a great programme and Guadix looks interesting. Hadn't come across that.Website
https://www.guadixcircuit.com/
So having got this far I feel sort of obliged to finish the road-trip story as sadly, having got to the Algarve just in time for autumn back home, we didn't stay there. But the best roads were behind us.
Day 7: Albufeira to Estepona 468km
The next leg of our journey was going to take us east around the Portuguese coast away from the Algarve to the Spanish border, close to Gibraltar and then on up to Estepona where we had hired an apartment.
This wasn’t supposed to be a road-hunting day, but we expected to be largely on the motorways and just follow the satnav. I got a little kick from seeing a corner of Africa, appearing on the satnav for the first time. A bit like when I went took my mountain bike to Oman. I kept zooming out on my Garmin so I could see Iran on the same map. It made me feel quite intrepid
This was our route:
Aside from a fabulous horse-riding holiday in Andalusia, southern Spain is one of the least familiar parts of Europe to me. Toying with the idea of semi-retiring to Spain, this part of the road-trip was a kind of recce. Most Brits retiring to Spain seem to head unsurprisingly to the Mediterranean coast or hinterland. I have a skipper’s ticket and would love to be close to the sea, but I also love the mountains having been a keen mountain biker and skier too.
At 3,000 miles in length Spain’s eastern seaboard clearly has something for everyone. Costa Almeria seems to have the driest micro-climate and as a rain-lashed Brit sounds particularly appealing to me, The Costa Del Sol around Malaga seems the illustrious (and therefore most expensive) part, and the Costa Blanca most popular for Brits looking to maximise their budgets. I thought it was about time we started exploring.
I have also been long intrigued about the largely unsung part of Iberia between about Faro on the eastern Algarve and Gibraltar. East until about the River Guadalquivir a lot of the land is low lying and estuarial. Not largely touristy, but it has its appeal with lots of fishing and thus lots of good fish to eat!
We stopped at Olhão on a recommendation and it was very characteristic of the area – and surprisingly busy given how late in the season (last few days of September) we were. Stopping for a coffee, we were amazed how much cheaper things were than on the Algarve – my espresso was one euro.
After Olhão we headed for Seville where we encountered the only real traffic of the whole trip. There is a lot of work going on on the motorway network with road closures and this really confused the satnav. We probably lost half an hour, but were soon driving past the legendary Jerez race track and Gibraltar.
Lunch stop – pre Porsche meets lamp-post incident
The rock is quite an amazing site from the road, but having previously heard of long queues at the border, we gave it a miss and headed up the coast on the A7. I particularly love the green mountains here. Just passing through it looks a great place to live - a shortish drive from the coast. That felt true all the way up to where were due to stay at Bahia Dorada 5 or 6km south of Estepona. We couldn’t believe our luck with the apartment. The development made a pretty good impression of a random collection of whitewashed houses clustered overlooking what appeared incredibly to be a large and deserted beach.
The first night there we drove into Estepona for a memorable meal at the first of our two restaurant recommendations: Casa del Rey. Estepona was the first and only place we had a problem parking. Well two problems really. Firstly we could not find a postage stamp of free space in the whole town. Secondly, I reversed the poor Cayman into a lamp-post. And before you ask – I have both sensors and a reversing camera. We ended up on the recently pedestrianised beachfront road, and the only way out of it, was to do a three-point turn. Two locals were lounging around having a ciggy, and chose to protest my presence by getting in the way. They had a point – but I was doing my best to correct the error. In my defence, they were close enough to the rear of the car to trigger the sensors, and as they refused to budge I was getting a cacophony of bleeping. I had to assume they would move. It was too dark to see them properly, but I knew roughly where they were. Unlike the lamp-post. It’s amazing what hitting a lamp-post at 5mph with a Porsche can sound like. To add insult to injury, the two men who had been skulking around both thumped the side of the car almost as hard as the lamp-post and yelled angrily – as though I had decided to attack their local town’s ironmongery with the only blunt instrument I could lay my hands on.
I jumped out expecting to see a Titanic style hole in the rear bodywork. Later inspection in the daylight revealed how much the body had flexed. Unfortunately leaving a small dent int the black diffuser and some crazing where the plastic rear body panel had flexed. You could see how much it had flexed given that the number plate light had popped out (and fortunately easily popped back in), but overall, a bit of a lucky escape – a 1-nil victory to the lamp-post, but it did detract a little from the amazing meal at Casa del Rey – highly recommended. If you are a proper carnivore – like at many restaurants in Spain – you are in for a treat. And like many restaurants in Spain – if you are a vegetarian, vegan or in some other way inflicted with a highly treasured intolerance – tough!
The following day we got a taxi, which meant I could sample a bit more vinho this time. We went to our other recommended venue – the legendary Restaurant Le Escollera in the port. This is a very popular but very unpretentious seafood restaurant. You can’t book. You queue in the bar, and at 8:00pm they throw open the finding room doors and the crown surge in and grab a table until they are all gone. So it pays to be there at about twenty to eight. Good fresh fish and no nonsense. Also highly recommended.
Day 7: Albufeira to Estepona 468km
The next leg of our journey was going to take us east around the Portuguese coast away from the Algarve to the Spanish border, close to Gibraltar and then on up to Estepona where we had hired an apartment.
This wasn’t supposed to be a road-hunting day, but we expected to be largely on the motorways and just follow the satnav. I got a little kick from seeing a corner of Africa, appearing on the satnav for the first time. A bit like when I went took my mountain bike to Oman. I kept zooming out on my Garmin so I could see Iran on the same map. It made me feel quite intrepid
This was our route:
Aside from a fabulous horse-riding holiday in Andalusia, southern Spain is one of the least familiar parts of Europe to me. Toying with the idea of semi-retiring to Spain, this part of the road-trip was a kind of recce. Most Brits retiring to Spain seem to head unsurprisingly to the Mediterranean coast or hinterland. I have a skipper’s ticket and would love to be close to the sea, but I also love the mountains having been a keen mountain biker and skier too.
At 3,000 miles in length Spain’s eastern seaboard clearly has something for everyone. Costa Almeria seems to have the driest micro-climate and as a rain-lashed Brit sounds particularly appealing to me, The Costa Del Sol around Malaga seems the illustrious (and therefore most expensive) part, and the Costa Blanca most popular for Brits looking to maximise their budgets. I thought it was about time we started exploring.
I have also been long intrigued about the largely unsung part of Iberia between about Faro on the eastern Algarve and Gibraltar. East until about the River Guadalquivir a lot of the land is low lying and estuarial. Not largely touristy, but it has its appeal with lots of fishing and thus lots of good fish to eat!
We stopped at Olhão on a recommendation and it was very characteristic of the area – and surprisingly busy given how late in the season (last few days of September) we were. Stopping for a coffee, we were amazed how much cheaper things were than on the Algarve – my espresso was one euro.
After Olhão we headed for Seville where we encountered the only real traffic of the whole trip. There is a lot of work going on on the motorway network with road closures and this really confused the satnav. We probably lost half an hour, but were soon driving past the legendary Jerez race track and Gibraltar.
Lunch stop – pre Porsche meets lamp-post incident
The rock is quite an amazing site from the road, but having previously heard of long queues at the border, we gave it a miss and headed up the coast on the A7. I particularly love the green mountains here. Just passing through it looks a great place to live - a shortish drive from the coast. That felt true all the way up to where were due to stay at Bahia Dorada 5 or 6km south of Estepona. We couldn’t believe our luck with the apartment. The development made a pretty good impression of a random collection of whitewashed houses clustered overlooking what appeared incredibly to be a large and deserted beach.
The first night there we drove into Estepona for a memorable meal at the first of our two restaurant recommendations: Casa del Rey. Estepona was the first and only place we had a problem parking. Well two problems really. Firstly we could not find a postage stamp of free space in the whole town. Secondly, I reversed the poor Cayman into a lamp-post. And before you ask – I have both sensors and a reversing camera. We ended up on the recently pedestrianised beachfront road, and the only way out of it, was to do a three-point turn. Two locals were lounging around having a ciggy, and chose to protest my presence by getting in the way. They had a point – but I was doing my best to correct the error. In my defence, they were close enough to the rear of the car to trigger the sensors, and as they refused to budge I was getting a cacophony of bleeping. I had to assume they would move. It was too dark to see them properly, but I knew roughly where they were. Unlike the lamp-post. It’s amazing what hitting a lamp-post at 5mph with a Porsche can sound like. To add insult to injury, the two men who had been skulking around both thumped the side of the car almost as hard as the lamp-post and yelled angrily – as though I had decided to attack their local town’s ironmongery with the only blunt instrument I could lay my hands on.
I jumped out expecting to see a Titanic style hole in the rear bodywork. Later inspection in the daylight revealed how much the body had flexed. Unfortunately leaving a small dent int the black diffuser and some crazing where the plastic rear body panel had flexed. You could see how much it had flexed given that the number plate light had popped out (and fortunately easily popped back in), but overall, a bit of a lucky escape – a 1-nil victory to the lamp-post, but it did detract a little from the amazing meal at Casa del Rey – highly recommended. If you are a proper carnivore – like at many restaurants in Spain – you are in for a treat. And like many restaurants in Spain – if you are a vegetarian, vegan or in some other way inflicted with a highly treasured intolerance – tough!
The following day we got a taxi, which meant I could sample a bit more vinho this time. We went to our other recommended venue – the legendary Restaurant Le Escollera in the port. This is a very popular but very unpretentious seafood restaurant. You can’t book. You queue in the bar, and at 8:00pm they throw open the finding room doors and the crown surge in and grab a table until they are all gone. So it pays to be there at about twenty to eight. Good fresh fish and no nonsense. Also highly recommended.
DickDasterdly said:
Sorry this is such a slow saga but herewith the Big Daddy, the El Dorado. . .
Day 5 Casa Penhas Douradas to Albufeira. 450km
Could the roads get any better? The answer is yes. We had booked an apartment on the Algarve for the next couple of nights. So this meant heading out of the hills on Day 5. But rather than retrace our steps back through Manteigas I thought we should see more of the Serra Estrella.
So we took the N232 west again from the Casa Penhas Douradas towards Gouveia, but turned left off it for Sabuguerio, that I had visited the previous day. This is an unclassified road, but just as good as the N232. From there, it’s climbing all the way to – to our amazement – the Serra de Estrella ski park. Did you know that you could ski in Portugal? Neither did we.
But I was more interested in what lay beyond the ski slopes. At Sabuguerio we had picked up the N339. And therefore El Dorado. This was the daddy. The landscape is even more stark and open, with great sightlines and a mixture of straights and open sweepers climbing towards the ski area (2,000m).
After the Estrela ski area, the road descends to Covilhã. Not long after the summit, I said “This is it”. I recognised the exact stretch of road on that Catchpole video. So now you know. I feel a duty to tell you, but I hope that I don’t start a stampede. To be honest, I don’t think I will.
I have driven all over western Europe. Especially the mountains. Western Europe comprises really only a tiny corner of the Eurasian continent. I’m biased, but I think it contains the best scenery in the world. But it is also contains one of the densest population concentrations in the world. I defy anyone not to fall in love with the Alps. But the best roads are shut in the winter, and slammed with holidaymakers in campervans in the summer.
The Serra Estrela is an anomaly. On the one hand it isn’t really near anywhere you have probably heard of. (Although Portugal is a small country so you are never really far from anywhere.) On the other, the Serra de Estrela is not really far from stunning Salamanca in Spain (which we visited on the way back). And Coimbra and Porto – two great destinations – are not far to the west. Likewise Lisbon is 300km to the south - and the Algarve where we were headed - another 150km. But the Serra de Estrela is well off the beaten tourist track. There aren’t many hotels in the Serra Estrella, but the two we visited were world class – and because they aren’t in a honey pot location – not world-class priced.
These are all good reasons to visit. After all, the further away from everywhere else the further you have to drive to get there. And in Spain and Portugal that’s a good thing!
Covilhã is a fine prize to find after driving the best road in the world. Quite a contrast to Manteigas it is a bustling, cosmopolitan university town at the foot of the mountains. We really wanted to stop, but unsure how long it would take us to get the Algarve we pressed on,
Also tempted to swing into Lisbon we pressed on again. Of course we encountered no traffic at all – so arrived at our apartment in Albufeira at tea time. Despite being a stone’s throw from the centre of town, there was plenty of street parking right outside our apartment.
Apart from all the other pleasant surprises on this trip, another one was the fuel consumption in the GTS. Despite not exactly holding back in the mountains, we normally averaged over 30 mpg. Squeezing that out of a normally aspirated, 4 litre 6-cylinder car is quite an achievement from Porsche in my book.
‘Er outdoors had holidayed in the Algarve as child – when apparently Albufeira was barely more than a fishing village (difficult to believe today – although the town beach is also called the Fisherman’s Beach). Albufeira is what we used to call places like Brighton in Britain – ‘Raffish’.
Adjective:
Unconventional and slightly disreputable, especially in an attractive way.
"His raffish air"
- Oxford English dictionary
Perhaps that is because it is brim-full of Brits. Especially obvious are many chubby, pasty-looking middle-age British men who insist on sitting in beach-side restaurants without a shirt. Despite this (or perhaps because of this) there is a generally convivial ‘we’re here to have a good time’ atmosphere. Restaurants are plentiful, cheap compared to back home, and despite this and the tourists, the food is always good. I think that while some places use the presence of tourists to pass off any old crap, the Spanish and Portuguese just can’t help themselves. They won’t serve you something that they themselves wouldn’t enjoy.
Another great report - definitely something I would fancy doing in our 718.Day 5 Casa Penhas Douradas to Albufeira. 450km
Could the roads get any better? The answer is yes. We had booked an apartment on the Algarve for the next couple of nights. So this meant heading out of the hills on Day 5. But rather than retrace our steps back through Manteigas I thought we should see more of the Serra Estrella.
So we took the N232 west again from the Casa Penhas Douradas towards Gouveia, but turned left off it for Sabuguerio, that I had visited the previous day. This is an unclassified road, but just as good as the N232. From there, it’s climbing all the way to – to our amazement – the Serra de Estrella ski park. Did you know that you could ski in Portugal? Neither did we.
But I was more interested in what lay beyond the ski slopes. At Sabuguerio we had picked up the N339. And therefore El Dorado. This was the daddy. The landscape is even more stark and open, with great sightlines and a mixture of straights and open sweepers climbing towards the ski area (2,000m).
After the Estrela ski area, the road descends to Covilhã. Not long after the summit, I said “This is it”. I recognised the exact stretch of road on that Catchpole video. So now you know. I feel a duty to tell you, but I hope that I don’t start a stampede. To be honest, I don’t think I will.
I have driven all over western Europe. Especially the mountains. Western Europe comprises really only a tiny corner of the Eurasian continent. I’m biased, but I think it contains the best scenery in the world. But it is also contains one of the densest population concentrations in the world. I defy anyone not to fall in love with the Alps. But the best roads are shut in the winter, and slammed with holidaymakers in campervans in the summer.
The Serra Estrela is an anomaly. On the one hand it isn’t really near anywhere you have probably heard of. (Although Portugal is a small country so you are never really far from anywhere.) On the other, the Serra de Estrela is not really far from stunning Salamanca in Spain (which we visited on the way back). And Coimbra and Porto – two great destinations – are not far to the west. Likewise Lisbon is 300km to the south - and the Algarve where we were headed - another 150km. But the Serra de Estrela is well off the beaten tourist track. There aren’t many hotels in the Serra Estrella, but the two we visited were world class – and because they aren’t in a honey pot location – not world-class priced.
These are all good reasons to visit. After all, the further away from everywhere else the further you have to drive to get there. And in Spain and Portugal that’s a good thing!
Covilhã is a fine prize to find after driving the best road in the world. Quite a contrast to Manteigas it is a bustling, cosmopolitan university town at the foot of the mountains. We really wanted to stop, but unsure how long it would take us to get the Algarve we pressed on,
Also tempted to swing into Lisbon we pressed on again. Of course we encountered no traffic at all – so arrived at our apartment in Albufeira at tea time. Despite being a stone’s throw from the centre of town, there was plenty of street parking right outside our apartment.
Apart from all the other pleasant surprises on this trip, another one was the fuel consumption in the GTS. Despite not exactly holding back in the mountains, we normally averaged over 30 mpg. Squeezing that out of a normally aspirated, 4 litre 6-cylinder car is quite an achievement from Porsche in my book.
‘Er outdoors had holidayed in the Algarve as child – when apparently Albufeira was barely more than a fishing village (difficult to believe today – although the town beach is also called the Fisherman’s Beach). Albufeira is what we used to call places like Brighton in Britain – ‘Raffish’.
Adjective:
Unconventional and slightly disreputable, especially in an attractive way.
"His raffish air"
- Oxford English dictionary
Perhaps that is because it is brim-full of Brits. Especially obvious are many chubby, pasty-looking middle-age British men who insist on sitting in beach-side restaurants without a shirt. Despite this (or perhaps because of this) there is a generally convivial ‘we’re here to have a good time’ atmosphere. Restaurants are plentiful, cheap compared to back home, and despite this and the tourists, the food is always good. I think that while some places use the presence of tourists to pass off any old crap, the Spanish and Portuguese just can’t help themselves. They won’t serve you something that they themselves wouldn’t enjoy.
During COVID in 2020, we were all set for driving to the Algarve in the Boxster and had our hotel in Lagos booked, Airbnb stop-offs booked in the Angouleme, Pyrenees (can’t remember exactly where now), Salamanca & Bilbao - just shortly after that, they started flying again so we had virtually a private Ryanair jet to Faro (only 8 passengers plus crew).
When I first met my wife, she used to be a fan of Albufeira but like others have said, then it was little more than a fishing village. We went a few times but it has changed for the worse thanks to all the stag/hen parties with cheap budget flights plus full of Brits. I managed to educate her that there were much nicer places in the Algarve so Lagos is our go-to place on the Algarve and we’ve been many times since. Lagos has also become a victim of huge development but so far it hasn’t fallen victim like Albufeira.
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