From Spain to Portugal and the Algarve

Our welcome drink at Nirvana - it did feel like paradise!

Nirvana was fab. 14 pitches, solar power, which lasted a little later than ours did and as it was presented to us powered the fridge, which our solar panel doesn’t do. Don’t ask me why (Campsite location: 37°17'19.4"N 7°19'21.3"W). There was a nice little bar, at which we were given a welcome drink, and which was frequented by the local mates. Shortly after arrival I was aware that our Swiss neighbours had obviously asked about eating and were being offered paella tonight. Seemed like too good an opportunity, we’ll have some of that, cooked by our hostess. We didn’t eat together, though the paella was cooked as one, we did have a good old chinwag in English with google subtitles.

Our away from it all Nirvana campsite

Villablanca. We did see one house that wasn't white!

We went into Villa Blanca (see walk with photos: click here), the local small village on Saturday morning which wasn’t hugely exciting, but appeared to have more bars than a place that size should. We walked past one bar to be greeted by our only Spanish speaking host. He wanted to know what we were looking for so he could help us find it, (I think), but we were just looking. It is lovely however to be greeted while out and about. Two windmills, a church, a procession of processionary caterpillars (they’ll kill your dog you know?) a coffee, and a beer and tapa and we’d pretty much seen everything, but that was fine.

The very long line of processionary caterpillars. Keep away from them!

Sunset at Nirvana

It really was very relaxed, three Spanish families had come for the weekend together so the kids were running around. There was a bit of a party going on at the bar, there were little walks around, into the woods and we could sit in the sun. Hard this.

Brian had emailed Fred who we met in Nepal, and visited last time we were in the US and Victor who we met on the cruise, and then with his husband Greg as they cruised into Edinburgh as all of them live on the west coast of the US, (though Fred is half there and half New Mexico, neither of which are Minneapolis where we drove for three

Our paella with the German-Swiss couple

days to see him last time) and we quite fancy a trip down the west coast. Within 10 minutes Victor and Greg, who were eating breakfast, were on the phone, full of excitement and ideas. Three months may not be long enough, particularly when added to the huge email that came in from Fred overnight with offers to use his house as a base, use his Jeep, or he could buy us a car and sell it on when we go. What lovely people we know. That’ll be something lovely for the end of the year then.

A walk through the forest close to our campsite at Villablanca. See our short video with a lot more photos: click here

Huge, megabusy site with quite small plots. I didn't like it much

Tuesday, what shall we do today? Portugal? Why not. There was no border control, so no Covid checks. That was easy. Campsites however do want to see a Covid passport on check in, but that’s ok. Olhão was our first stop, we thought we’d booked, but apparently not. Walk in and have a look around and tell us where you want the electricity plugging in. It was huge, tennis court, swimming pool, restaurant, shop and TV lounge, with book exchange, which sadly was Covid closed. It was probably 10 minutes from our pitch, to reception. Brian hated it. I was fairly ambivalent, we’ve just never seen anything like it (campsite location: 37°02'11.2"N 7°49'03.4"W).

However the Via e Volta all you can eat fish restaurant made up for it - it was amazing!!

First serving

On reading that we were coming into Portugal Iain had recommended an all you could eat fish bbq, but we weren’t stopping in Tavira, our antenna were up though, so looked on trip advisor and found a similar in Olhão. Oh my goodness. We caught the bus, from right outside the campsite, into town, without having breakfast (very hard for Brian). Had a look at the market, the salt marshes, the church, museum and wonderful tiny back streets before arriving at the restaurant bang on 12.00 (The Vai e Volta). Bread, olives, tuna mayo and a couple of anchovies, just to keep us going, then potatoes, sweet potatoes, tomato salad and mush (I will

We lost count (at least 14 we ate), they kept coming as long as we said

find out what it’s called, but it’s basically very very garlicky bread sauce) and fish. The first plate had three on, the second two, the third three and then I lost count, but they kept coming, and coming. I’m so pleased we arrived early and had chance to talk to the bbq meister because once it got busy he hadn’t a minute, nobody had empty plates, he seemed to know what everyone had, mackerel, horse mackerel, salmon, sea bass, two sorts of bream, and more, but I can’t remember... all for €14 each, add a bottle of wine, water, coffee and tip, and still change from 50! Here's a short video of our walk round the town: click here

Snapped this seagull with a tasty little crab in his beak

I call this art!

Up and back into town relatively early the next day too. To catch the ferry out to Culatra island. We got off at the lighthouse and walked the 4km to the other end in time to catch the next ferry back to the mainland. We had actually been aiming at the one after that, expecting to eat on the islands, but the options were a little lacking on a Thursday in February so we hopped back on the boat and ate on the mainland. There was meant to be a walk through the dunes, but we couldn’t find it, and they are protected so you can’t just go ambling, so the beach it was! Here's a short video with photos of our boat ride and walk: click here

The interesting back streets of Olhão

And interesting cats too - do you think he's comfy?

We moved on today to Alvor, not sure why here except that I read you can still free camp for a couple of days, by the sports ground, maybe, except it’s weekend, and wild camping has virtually been banned in Portugal, so we are on a campsite. Not quite as big as the last, and with pool, shop and restaurant, though I have yet to explore. The book exchange is in reception, so that’s a plus, but the vibe is totally different. We are parked as far away as is humanly possible and have yet to go into town, but having realised we can only do justice to a tiny part of Portugal we may just stay here, before doing a mad dash for our ferry in a fortnights time! Campsite location: 37°08'02.8"N 8°35'14.5"W

She didn't mention this ship moored in the harbour at Olhão. It's called the Bom Sucesso, which means Good Luck or Good Success and this is a replica of the original that sailed across the Atlantic to Brazil in 1808 with only rudimentary navigation equipment on board, in order to tell the exiled king D. João VI that Napolean and the French had finally been expelled from Portugal and he can return home. The king gave the town the honourary title of Olhão the village of the Restoration in thanks

We had a little visitor at the Olhão campsite. She hopped into Big Ted, had a good look round, hopped up onto our bed and fell asleep for an hour or so. We had several subsequent visits from her

Storks nesting on top of two chimneys in Olhão

On our boat trip out to Cultara Island. It's all very low lying here and the town of Olhão is protected from the sea by a number of low sandy islands. Most of them are uninhabited, but a couple have small populations living on them. Cultara is one and has three small villages along its 9 or so km length. The ferry wends it's way through the channels separating them, making sure it sticks to the buoys to avoid grounding and stops at firstly at Cultara village in the centre and then goes on to Farol village on the western tip. We decided to get off at Farol and walk back over the dunes to Cultara, have lunch and the catch the ferry back...

Here we've just arrived at Farol. There are no cars on the island and actually no hard path surfaces connecting the villages, only tracks in the sand...

Here we are at the end of Farol village...

From here it's a 4km walk to Cultara village. The sand was really soft, so we tried to walk as close to the sea as possible where it was slightly firmer, but the Atlantic breakers rolled in really quickly requiring a quick jog inland on occasions. With no real purchase on the soft sand it made the 4km feel much longer and we felt we'd had a really good workout

Finally we got to a boardwalk that took us from the south beach across the island to the village on the north, what a relief!

We actually did really good time, but finding no restaurants we liked the look of on the island we waited on the dock and got the next ferry back

One more visit this morning from the camp cat before we packed up and drove for two hours to Alvor, our next stop

So here we are on a lovely spacious pitch in our Alvor campsite. For €16 a night we've got electric hookup, wifi that works reasonably well, toilets, showers and washing up facilities about 20m away, sunshine and warm enough to sit out in t shirts, birds singing in the trees. This is what we came away for! We originally planned to stay here 3 nights, but we might throw our itinerary away and stay here longer, making a dash for the Santander ferry on 26th. We can do more of Portugal another time! There's beach less than 2km away, a long boardwalk through a nature reserve nearby and a town with lots of bars. That'll do - there's sparkling wine in the fridge, we have plenty of snacks and food, there's a Portuguese restaurant bar on site and, Jackie has found out, an English pub as well. Chill out time!