Scenic archway in Loule's historic district

Virtually every Algarve town and village of any size invites you to explore its back streets and alleyways. Who could resist coming upon an old archway like this and not feeling the need to walk just a little bit further to see what is around the next bend?

This particular scenic back street will be found in the historic district of Loulé, but I have dozens of pictures of other quaint, inviting street scenes that are similar. I tend to travel solo, so safety is important to me. And I love the fact that I can wander at will around the Algarve without a care in the world for my safety. Now, I don’t tend to be a late night rambler so I might think a bit differently about this place at midnight, but during the day I find it surprising how few people you’re likely to encounter if you wander the maze of back streets on offer, let alone spending any time worrying if you’ll be safe as you meander.

Stout shoes are a must since almost all of the streets are cobbled. Soles that grip are also useful because many of these cobblestones have become polished with use. If there is a bit of dampness around it is easy to slip and slide on the undulating surfaces of cobbles. But other than that, I encourage you to get out and explore. Don’t go where everyone else goes. Take a side street, explore a back street, rattle down an alley for no more reason than to see where it goes and what cool windows, doors, flowerboxes or vistas show up. Even the big touristy places in the Algarve such as Albufeira, Lagos and Portimao all have lots of mysterious back streets for you to explore. And if you get brave enough to head off to towns like Silves, Loulé, Olhão, or Tavira you’ll be positively amazed by the variety of such places for you to explore. Make certain that your camera battery is well charged and there’s lots of room on your camera’s data storage card. You’ll be sure to use it a lot.

Have fun!

Cooling Waters flow at Caldas de Monchique

Caldas de Monchique is one of my favourite spots in the Algarve. A revitalized Victorian Roman spa village nestled in a tiny mountain valley about half-way up to the town of Monchique, the Caldas offers a calming, cooling break on a hot and busy day.

As you pull off the main highway and head down the cobbled street into the Caldas, it is immediately apparent that you are in a special place. Well restored Victorian townhouses, hotels and summer homes nestled in lush greenery greet you. This is a place to take a couple of hours and ramble about, taking in the sights and smells. You’ll quickly discover the huge outdoor wood burning oven where they bake bread stuffed with chouriço sausage. If you’re lucky the cafe next door to the oven will still have some of these tasty treats for sale and you can sit outside under the trees while you savour the ambience and your snack.

Take a walk uphill from the cafe and you’ll follow a walled stream with smaller, natural streams flowing in from the woods surrounding the area. There are rustic stone picnic tables and benches, plus lots of trails to follow. Take your time and enjoy this delightful break. On one Sunday morning trip to the Caldas I discovered a local woman with her hand embroidered linens for sale. One huge change that I’ve seen in Portuguese crafts over the many years I’ve been visiting is the loss of the great quality linens that once were on sale everywhere. These days most embroidered tableware is machine done. Not so with this lady. I happily bought a raw linen tablecloth embroidered in white flowers, along with 12 dinner napkins. Cost me a small fortune but I know it’ll become a family heirloom. You just never know what you’re going to discover when you get off-the-beaten-track.

Downhill from the cafe and gift shop area you’ll discover the ‘workings’ of the spa. Lovely small buildings, a swimming pool and incredible gardens. This area is much more open and won’t provide the break from the sun’s heat that the up-hill woodsy areas offer. But beautiful nonetheless.

You can easily spend two or three hours wandering around the Caldas. There are restaurants, although I find them pricey. The cafe and gift shop are worth a visit, though. So if you are in the Algarve and find the bright sunshine and heat of its glorious beaches are starting to get to be a bit much, take a short ride north of Portimão and experience the cool, shady glade known as Caldas de Monchique.

Almond Blossoms, mature nut pods and early spring growth

I am always delighted to be in the Algarve when the almonds are in bloom. Roadsides and fields are awash in white and pink blossoms. At times they literally sparkle in the sunshine. It is easy to see how a local legend developed. It is said that a Moorish prince was distressed to discover that his princess from a Northern land was deeply pining for the fields of snow from her homeland. So he commanded that almond trees be planted everywhere so that the fields and hills would be covered in white, a certain way to make his love happy.

When I’m in the Algarve out of Almond blossom season, these small trees are much more modest and less easy to identify. However, on my most recent trip I began to be able to distinguish them and to see the almond nuts growing in their furry green pods which will eventually turn into the hard, brown outer shells of the almonds. When I go back in October I’ll be certain to check and see what the nut casings look like with a full season on growth behind them.

In the meantime, I’ll just remember the taste and texture of this wonderful food.

Is it a pitcher plant?

It isn’t often that I feel completely stumped when identifying flora and fauna. But this little beauty is a new one for me. I found it growing in an abandoned field near Tavira. There was a drainage ditch nearby but the ground upon which I discovered it was scrubby, dry and filled with gravel and stones.  It was tiny, perhaps 2 cm (1″) in height.

Whatever it is, it brightened up my January afternoon and stretched my photo taking abilities to get my camera down low enough to do it justice.

Such are the delights on getting away from the carefully manicured gardens of towns and cities and just wandering along a little used roadway. Discoveries such as this little ‘pitcher plant’ add sparkle to any day.

Sweet little buttercup

On my last Algarve trip I spent a couple of weeks focused on the Eastern Algarve. Tavira was the epicentre of my stay and it was a delight. It is amazing to me how much geographic diversity there is in such a tiny place. The coastline in the eastern region is much gentler than the wild, rugged beaches of the West Coast. It lacks the cliffs and carved sandstone rocks of the southwest. But it has its own charm, tucked away behind the barrier islands of the Rio Formosa.

You’ll find a number of villages where fishing is still a daily commercial activity. And there seemed to be far more blossoming almond trees than I’ve seen further west.

January was cool this past year but the blossoms were incredible. On this little side road I was delighted to find a field of ancient almond trees in blossom and many of the tiny buttercup-like blossoms nodding away in the breeze. I love these little bright yellow blooms. They sway and dance in the sunny breezes, only opening up fully when the sun’s rays are strong enough to coax them to come out to play. I have found them notoriously difficult to photograph. There heads are typically turned demurely down.

But in this spot these little buttercups were blooming on an old stone wall and were high enough up that I could get my camera lens looking them straight in the eye! And I think you’ll agree that they are a truly delightful eyeful.  Enjoy.

Dusky green leaves & purple fruit against an azure sky

Olives and olive oil are to the Portuguese what blood is to the rest of us!  I think it runs in their veins.  Everywhere you go throughout the Algarve, you’ll see olive trees and orchards; supermarkets are full of fruity, green extra virgin olive oil; farmers markets offer freshly picked fruits to housewives who still pickle their own olives.

I’m particularly fond of the ancient, gnarled ones that tend to grow out of exceptionally rocky soil, often on the side of hill.  They are my invitation to connect with just how short our human life span is, given that they just keep surviving, century after century.

Many of my clients are startled when they discover that an olive, whether green or ripe, can’t simply be plucked from a tree and popped into the mouth.  They must be processed to soften the meat that surrounds the hard pit and to remove some of the bitterness.  The processing of olives, making them edible, involves soaking them in a salt/vinegar solution for several weeks.  They are then packed in another salt brine solution or sometimes in a type of marinade for sale to the consumer.

I’ve had a lot of fun checking out the various types of raw olives on sale at farmer’s markets.  I have great fantasies of curing my own, but Canadian food import regulations would take a very dim view of me trying to bring them home.  So in the meantime I do what Algarveans do.  I buy brined olives, bring them back to my apartment kitchen, rinse them and then add a bit of olive oil, some chopped garlic, oregano and perhaps a few hot pepper flakes.  I let them sit in the fridge for  a couple of days and then treat myself to a delightful meal of marinated olives, fresh, crunchy Portuguese bread, some fabulous local cheese and a great glass of wine.

If you travel the back roads during the late fall and early winter you are sure to see farmers out in their olive orchards with tarps and nets laid out on the dry, rocky earth to catch the olives that they shake out of the trees.  On my next visit I’m going to take a video of this ancient practice which seems so much more mysterious to me than picking apples from a tree!

Ladies of Alte

I’m an avid people watcher.  Long ago I learned how much fun it is to make up stories about the people who catch my attention and interest as I move about my life.

So you can imagine that looking down the main street of the hill town of Alte and seeing this congregation of ladies one afternoon really caught my attention.  I’ve thought about them a lot since I took this picture.  And the more I think about them, the more I imagine them as being local farm women who come into town weekly to partake of the mercado and visit the supermarket.  Of course, that’s the justification for their trip.  But what’s really important to them is the camaraderie of the weekly experience – catching up with old friends, learning the latest gossip, prolonging the battle with a neighbour, providing friendship and support, getting their need for social interaction taken care of.

So many intertwined things happening all at once and all justified by the need to keep the family topped up with detergent, coffee, sugar and flour!

I wish I had waited until the local bus arrived.  It would have been fun to watch their process for boarding:  who deferred to whom, who pushed to the front, who hung back.  Because it was clear that they all were involved in something ritualistic.  There was no craning of necks wondering when their transport would arrive.  They were content to stand in the shade, chatting away.  It was clear they had done this a thousand times before and anticipated they’d be doing it well into the future.

I look forward to going back on another visit and checking out these ladies who congregate.  Just to see if I can confirm to myself if any of my story holds water!  Because it is, after all, just my story of what was happening in their lives.  I sometimes wonder if they ever make up stories about me, the tourist who travels alone and who seems so interested in the day-to-day happenings of their town rather than the churches, views and shops.

I was rattling along a very, very narrow road in Estoi when a small car pulled out in front of me.  And I realized that this car seemed more ‘right’ on that road than did my small but modern rental vehicle.  I was following an old Citroen Cub in beautiful condition.  Its tires were narrow, it was high off the ground, the little signal sticks that popped out when it turned were all charming.  And the colour scheme was quite arresting.  The rich, dark red of the fenders and roof contrasted beautifully with the clotted cream colour of the body.

I followed the Citroen all the way up to the Pousada at Estoi where the couple parked and left.  That gave me a great opportunity to take a few pictures and really appreciate this sweet little blast from the past.  Can’t tell you how old it was, anything about its heritage.  I’m not a car person.

But it just felt so right to see this old car driving down the narrow, winding roads of this small town.  I thought about my father’s proclivity for small European cars that our large family all piled into in pre-seat belt, pre-safety obsessed days.  I remembered the days when we all had to learn how to use hand signals as part of our driver’s training ’cause you couldn’t always rely on the flashing lights on your car.  And it reminded me, yet again, of the small magical moments that await anyone who chooses to get away from those wonderful Algarve beaches for a while.

Flocks of Sheep Have a Life of Their Own

At home we all worry about getting caught in a traffic jam.  As I rattle around in the Algarve I delight in coming across a sheep jam!  And I don’t have to be on a back road for that to happen.  I usually stay in the village of Olhos D’Agua, just east of Albufeira.  And I’ve found a way to by-pass the busy city route and come down from the EN125, through Montechorro to get home when I’ve been out and about for the day.  I haven’t had my driving stopped yet, but I always chuckle when I see the herd of sheep munching away on the open fields along these busy streets.

One of my clients was tickled as we slowly made our way along one of the few dirt roads that still exist.  Slowly is the operative word because as we rounded a bend a large herd of sheep and goats flooded up the bank, across the road and then started munching on anything green in sight.  I’ve actually started to get to know this flock in my many trips to the area but this was my first time to see them leaving the farm.  We got out of the car and spent about 10 minutes watching the flock meander about, the young shepherd start to move them up the side of the hill, his father or uncle bringing up the rear, getting the dogs to round up stragglers and move them out into the surrounding countryside for the day’s fattening up.  I love a sheep jam!  The sound of tinkling bells, the snorting, baaing and bumping that goes on, smart dogs that barely have to bark to get their charges to pay attention.  All that life flowing across my pathway.

On this particular day we then proceeded out to the next beach, stopping at a megalith along the way.  What a delight it was to hear the sound of bells floating across the headland.  We knew they were ‘our’ sheep, hidden from view but not very far away.

For me, those are the memories that brighten my dark winter days.  They remind me of a way of life we are in danger of forgetting about.  They invite me to wonder what these shepherds get to experience from a life of routine and a slow pace that my need for novelty and difference doesn’t allow for.  And they sure slow me down for a few minutes!