Visiting Kyria in Lagos, Portugal

After great catch up with Tricia, Gail and Anne in Herts, I left Stansted late on Thursday evening to fly to Faro to find out how Kyria is getting on in her new life in the sun. Not that as I start to write this on Saturday morning there is so much, as quite cloudy though still warm. It was after midnight by the time I had got through passport control and picked up my bag but the lack of traffic at that time of night made the journey from Faro to Lagos as straight forward as possible and we arrived at the hotel before 1.30am. It is lovely and only about 10 minutes from where Kyria is living which is lucky as could have been much farther away. 

this is the view from my room

 

As you can see grand staircase too.

Spent Friday having a tour of the old town 

and a look at the marina before heading for the local beach to check that out.

 She showed me her accommodation where she  has a nice room in the 'staff quarters' of The Garden

 which is about to become a bar, barbecue and restaurant, owned in partnership by Kevin who has become her new man. All the permissions are now in place but the final piece of paper is not expected until midweek so they are planning a soft opening on Sunday. Kyria will work in the restaurant but has also started thinking rather more about her plans for ladies and kids wetsuits.

So before she gets totally embroiled in all that I shall endeavour to get some cultural activities on her itinerary for the next few days as there are some interesting places to visit according to the guide books!

Saturday weather lovely and took myself off to a different beach near the hotel with great rock formations but quite a few steps it will keep me fit I suppose!

Out to supper with the two Ks as last evening before the opening in pleasant out of town restaurant. Arranged for Kyria to take me to the long sand dune beach Meia Praia next afternoon so I spent Sunday morning having a further look around the town

 and visiting a museum housed in a fort at the river entrance.This beautiful chest was one of the exhibits.

 The top floor has some rather lovely kinetic sculptures which owe a little bit to Mad Max I think!

Henry the Navigator who was key in encouraging sea exploration lived here as it was the capital of the region for 200 years from 1557 until an earthquake destroyed much of the town.

 Hopefully my experiences in New Zealand are not about to be repeated! There is a monument to Gil Eanes who was the first man to sail out of sight of land and return who also came from the town.

Rather less honourably it also has the first african slave market in Europe set up in 1444 which followed from all the trade down the west coast of Africa.

The beach is very wide and long quite different from the pretty coves on the coast going further west. After a pleasant afternoon we drifted up to a bar on the dunes and enjoyed in my case a glass of wine while listening to some live music as the sun was sinking lying against a huge bean bag, rather Californian. Back at the Garden quite few people had been and were in to check out the new space in town.

Let Kyria help out on Monday although she was suffering a bit from dehydration and had a gentle day myself by the hotel pool before finding a back street restaurant where had some very good grilled fish.

Tuesday morning I set off for a beach further away but discovered that distances on my map look farther than they proved so ended up walking to the lighthouse at the end of the promontory. 

This overlooks the grottos which are best visited by sea but still managed to get some good shots of the eroded cliffs from above.

Met up with Koo to drive up into the hills, stopped for lunch at Caldas de Monchique a spa village set amongst wooded hills.

Continued on up to Monchique itself and then to Foia which is the highest place in the Algarve, unfortunately rather hazy but you will get the idea from this photo with a strange lady in it!

We then descended to Silves which has a large castle which fortunately was still open when we arrived.

The whole of the walls can be walked round, no health and safety considerations here with work on the gardens as well.

Not surprisingly it has good views of the surrounding area. The town has ancient origins including a Roman bridge and Moorish remains, it was the Islamic capital of Al Gharb so now you know where Algarve comes from.  Originally a river port but the river silted up and the town declined until cork processing was started up in the 19^th century. Rather less of that now but good agricultural land and tourism provide the bulk of the employment these days.

The weather which had continued sunny and hot up in the hills proved to be rather windy and cool on our return and woollies were needed for the first time in the evening.

Morning proved back to warm and sunny and made the beach I had originally set out for on Tuesday, many more steps down to this one

 and the tide came in restricting the space but managed to find a dry spot and spent most of the day there. Ventured into the sea but the water is so cold compared to the Med that I ducked out of actually swimming! Arrived back at the hotel in time to watch the end of the Murray/Ferrer match and then spent most of the rest of the evening doing this, how time flies when you're enjoying yourself!