Saturday 19 January 2013

What a wild night! Gale force winds rocked the van about and heavy rain woke us up. By getting up time it had mostly abated but it was still breezy and showery, fortunately not enough to stop us getting ready todepart – this time straight to the Algarve and see if we can find some sun!

Been a bit of rain around here?

A brief stop at a nearby supermarket to top up essentials, including a replacement tube for a failed fluorescent light, before we headed south avoiding the toll motorway. A very pleasant drive, even if we were plagued by strong winds and showers, and passing through one village we crossed a real raging torrent, coming down off the hills.

No, I can't shift it!

But staying off the main roads meant we saw a lot more of the real Portugal although at one point we were forced to turn back and divert because of a tree across the road – we had seen evidence several times of fallen trees having only just been cleared away.

Lunch taken at the side of the road as the weather started to improve and our first glimpse of the Mediterranean came in sunshine near Albufeira. We had decided to head for Portimao, really only because it was towards the western end of the Algarve and the book told us of a large motorhome site. However, now the satnav kept trying to put us up onto the toll road, and we also found that road signs to anywhere near the motorway were sparse. To encourage its use perhaps? So the netbook came into its own, not having detailed local maps, and we picked up the old road, N125, which took us through the villages and small towns along the coast before eventually taking us across the bridge into Portimao.

The bridge across the river estuary to Portimao

A very modern town with lots of high-rise apartments (what do they all do for work we wonder) built on the estuary of the Rio Arade – the aire is situated behind the marina, right in the corner with the coast. A huge parking area, there were dozens of vans scattered around but nobody in the Recepcao so we found ourselves a spot in the middle and settled in. Although we had enjoyed sunshine latterly, there were still showers around but for now we had arrived!