Portugal's Algarve: As beautiful as the travel brochures say

Worshipers lighting candles at El Rocio

After a week of city hopping in southern Spain's Andalusian region we were ready for a week of less cultural vacation on the coast. I had been able to use RCI timeshare points to secure a 7-day stay in a resort in the western Algarve of Portugal, in a small place called Alvor. So, on Sunday morning after an evening of more tapas in Sevilla, we loaded up the rental Polo and headed west.

The packed church at El Rocio

El Rocio has no paved streets—it's all sand, and everyone wears boots

Worshippers or true pilgrims? We couldn't figure it out, but they kept coming.

On the way we detoured from the main highway to check out a small place that was highlighted by the guidebook, El Rocio. We had read that this sleepy village comes to life once a year when tens of thousands of pilgrims converge upon it to seek the favors of the Virgin Mary. We expected a sleepy hamlet with unpaved roads, as the guidebook had led us to believe—but instead we found the place teeming with busloads of religious tourists and the occasional pilgrim who had walked at least the last few miles on sandy trails. We were totally surprised, assuming that this had to be a religious holiday, but that didn't seem to be the case; at least we were not able to link November 15 to any major saint's holiday.

El Rocio is not just about religion—it's about horses and everything equine, too

Advertising on the side of a building

Excursion on horseback in the Donana, a huge national park

We milled around El Rocio for a while and then headed on, toward Portugal. On a near-empty highway we crossed the bridge across the Rio Guadiana and then we were in Portugal. It's weird how almost immediately countryside can change when one crosses borders. It doesn't happen often, but here it did: Suddenly the mountainsides were green, a fresh, spring-like green, instead of the more subdued and dry colors of Spain. We had left the fairly flat region that stretches from Sevilla toward the coast, and now we were traveling through rolling hills. Olive groves gave way to orange orchards, and the towns looked differently, too, more often whitewashed than sporting the color of natural stone. The farther west we drove, the more pronounced the contours became, and the greener the ground cover became. Either these were the effects of recent rains, or maybe it was the Atlantic's effect on the climate.

An empty motorway leads into Portugal—maybe because it was a toll road?

Alvor, a small fishing hamlet between Albufeira and Lagos on the south coast of Portugal, sports only a few high-rise hotels. And since this was the off-season, there were so few tourists around that many of the restaurants, bars, and shop were closed and the ones that were open had only few guests. Wonderful!

Alvor has both a wide sandy beach as well as sandstone cliffs

View from our terrace

Sunday night Happy Hour

We were staying in an immaculately landscaped small holiday colony, with two-story units that were inviting and stood out with their whitewashed walls. There were flowers and plants everywhere, and the lawns were green and well kept. For once, RCI points had yielded a truly great vacation experience! Our one-bedroom unit had a large living room, a dining area, a full kitchen with any appliance one could ask for, and two bathrooms, in addition to the master bedroom. We took our breakfasts and spent numerous Happy Hours on our terrace. Thanks to Alto Golf Club's being built onto a hillside the terrace overlooked the units below us and had a clear view of Alvor and the Atlantic; we had sun from the early morning until it set in the late afternoon in the west over Lagos. There were a table, four comfortable chairs, and two chaise lounges, and there was total privacy for German-style sunbathing in the buff.

How's this for a coastline?

That was our home base for a week. Nice!

Or this for a private beach?

Weather-wise we were equally lucky. Just like in Spain, every day was sunny and temperatures topped out around 72 to 74 degrees. The wind was light and gentle most of the time, and there was no haze in the air. It doesn't get much better than that. The Atlantic is always pretty chilly, but we ventured into the water once or twice. Lying on the beach was definitely warmer, but this was not really a "beach" vacation, either. But when we came across a nice, scenic beach we'd strip down (hey, it's Europe!) and enjoy the sound of the waves and the screaming of the seagulls.

Contemplating life—or just taking a picture

We took several excursions by car along the coast. These trips were all  rather brief as the days are short and it is difficult to get going when one can enjoy a leisurely breakfast on the terrace. We also walked around Alvor, and one morning just hung out for an hour or two in a small harbor cafe watching what was happening (or not). In the evenings, we'd coe back for octopus salad and a Super Bock. It all was very laid-back, and without tourists the pace was extremely measured, which was just what we wanted.

Alvor harbor

Espresso time

Sabine helping the locals

Alvor harbor, going from sleepy to asleep

The Algarve is Portugal's southern coast, and it is divided into an eastern, a central, and a western section. From the east, the coast becomes progressively rugged, with wide sandy beaches giving way to first fairly low sandstone cliffs with still-large sandy beaches to finally imposing cliffs that no longer allow shore access to the few coves. Here one needs a boat to get to those secluded beaches that one sees in the postcards and brochures. Alvor is on the western end of the central sector—or the eastern end of the western sector, if that makes sense—and here one finds both the wide beaches and the spectacular rock formations. Thanks to the fragile nature of the sandstone one needs to be careful in regard to climbing around, obviously, but also where one lies on the beach—some rocks tumble all the time.

One afternoon we drove out to the most southwestern point of mainland Europe, the Cabo de Sao Vincente. Here the south and the west coasts meet at what is essentially a 90-degree angle, and the difference in the seas could not be more pronounced: When we were there, the southern coast was almost totally calm, with just gentle waves, while the western shore took a beating from hard rollers that had traveled thousands of miles to work on eroding the land here. What a wildly beautiful place! The keeper of the lighthouse gave us and four other tourists a private tour of the tower, and we saw close-up the giant refractor whose light can be seen as far away as 59 kilometers out at sea! The lighthouse keeper and his family live on the premises, for four years, before being rotated to another lighthouse. He's responsible for the maintenance and upkeep of this important beacon, and he makes a few extra euros by giving private tours for a small tip. The next grocery store is about 10 kilometers away.

Fishermen just off Cabo de Sao Vicente

The lighthouse at the most southwestern point of mainland Europe

In front of the huge refractor, inside of the lighthouse

The light can be seen from as far away as 59 kilometers

Sunset at the End of the World

Our last full day was the first one of the entire trip when we did not wake up to sunshine and blue skies. Large black clouds were racing across the sky, and we had heard the windows rattle all night. On the South Plains we would have called it an arctic cold front; here it was an Atlantic low pressure system that was moving through. We decided on one more road trip with the car, this time to the west coast where in the neighborhood of Carrapateira a scenic loop leads along the steep granite cliffs (if these were sandstone, not much would be left of the coastline!). The drive through the Portuguese hinterlands was quite memorable, with small villages, cork oaks, and green pastures. And once we got to the coast, our breath was literally taken away by the roaring wind. Sabine, as a sailor, tried to assess its strength by looking at the spray of the whitecaps and other such stuff—I went by feel and would say that we experienced gusts of at least 40 to 50 mph. I don't think I have ever seen breakers like this roll in! We may have been in Portugal, but this was not the Algarve that you see in the tourist brochures—this was the wild Atlantic with raw force.

That evening, upon our return, we went out for a last meal in one of the local restaurants. Food ain't cheap here (years ago, Judy and I had taken a trip along the northern coast of Portugal and were amazed by the low, low prices), but since this was our last evening of the trip we didn't count the pennies and had wonderful fish dishes. What a great way to end our two-week jaunt through the southern parts of the Iberian peninsula.

On Sunday morning we left bright and early for Malaga. It was about a five-hour drive, comfortable and easy with hardly any traffic and the most stunning views as the storm system had cleared out any haze that might have lingered. It never quite warmed up, staying in the mid- to upper forties for most of the day. With plenty of time to spare we made it to the Malaga airport, and it felt good to return our Europcar without any other wear than a lot of dust and sea-spray and and extra 1,700 kilometers on the odometer. Our Airberlin flight was more or less on time, and with a sad heart we said goodbye to the sun and the Costa del Sol—only to reenter reality in Munich less than 3 hours later to the tune of snowflakes and freezing temperatures and the hallmark of the Holiday Season, the Munich Airport Christmas Market.

What happened to summer???

Thank goodness, in two weeks I'll take in some more sun on the Riviera Maya. :) So long,

Jürgen