“Obrigado” Portugal!

Our departure from Lisbon required three stages, starting on a municipal train from our home of Rossio (though not the Rossio Station, rather the Rossio Metro Station, as previously covered), then via reservation ticket to Tunes, and finally a regional train, strikingly similar to Calgary’s C-Train, to our destination of Lagos, in the popular holiday state of Algarve. At the station we disembarked with the rest of the passengers, and were exclusively approached by an elderly gentleman asking if we were in need of a place to stay. We confessed that, yes, we were, and he offered us a flat in the center of town, for the too-good-to-be-true price of 35E (significantly less than the cheapest hostel in town). We agreed to have a look before deciding, and spent the trek from the train station to downtown engaged in a heated discussion of glances and silences. What do you think? Can we trust this guy? What’s the catch?

It’s hard to say, when we arrived at the flat, if our fears were amplified or allayed. The flat was very nice, and there appeared to be no “catch”. We cautiously unpacked, keeping all of our valuables on hand, and ventured out. Out the door anyway. We inadvertently locked ourselves out, and were forced to solicit help from our downstairs neighbour, who turned out to be a very charming old lady, Senora Francisca – who happened to own the flat. She spent about half an hour explaining about the lock and the windows and various other details. After her tour it was impossible not to trust the place, so we felt much more at ease, and relaxed in the comfort of a much more flexible budget.

While the town itself is quite a nice little place, with all the charms of a small seaside town, there are a few things that detracted from our overall experience. I had been hoping to take a turn at surfing here, since Algarve is one of Europe’s top surf destinations, but Lagos is not well positioned to get the right waves, so I was disapointed in that regard. There are also a lot of tourists. I know it’s high season, but the place was positively overrun with tourists, which put a dent in the quaintness of it. A quick tour of town let us know how supernaturally providential the train station encounter was, since each hostel was spilling a crowd of barely-twenty, can’t-hold-our-liquor Australians (rapidly becoming my least favorite set of traveller).

We explored the beach area, which is a fascinating juxtaposition of flat sandy beaches and rocky cliffs.

Each small beach was hemmed in by high sandstone perimeters, scalable only by a network of stairways and boardwalks which connected each beach together and to the roadway above.

During our second day we took a “grotto cruise” aboard a sailboat, though a lack of wind meant that the unfurled sail was mostly just for show, and had a much more comprehensive look at the selection of beaches and cliffs. Our ship was towing an excursion boat, which we used to get an up-close look at the tunnels, caves, and uniquely shaped features of the rock faces.  Once our sailboat arrived at its destination we separated into two smaller groups – the group that stayed with the main boat while they wait their turn had a chance to take a dip in the water, which some people took advantage of the opportunity.  With a bar on board, the boat ride was a relaxing way to check out the coastline.

Our meals here had a distinctly “international” flair. We had dinners of Indian (having finally gotten the craving, after taking a couple of months off), Thai, and Portugese origin, and all of the food was of a very high quality. It was a huge relief for me to be able to shrug off a relatively highly priced meal because of our wonderfully cheap accomodation. Those two categories, eating and sleeping, seem to occupy the vast bulk of our daily budget, so this was an opportunity not to be missed!

Our time here was fun, but will be primarily defined by our fantastic apartment. The whole nature of it had a suspicious/miraculous air about it, which likely doesn’t come through in my terse description, and Christina commented as we were leaving that she wouldn’t be surprised to discover that there is no Senora Francisca. Perhaps the whole affair had been conducted by angels or something. If they could hook us up with something similar for Italy that would be swell.