Our Day in Portugal

Walking to the Beach

We didn’t spend much time in Portugal, so I’m not officially crossing it off our travel list. I really wanted to see the Alhambra palace and the cheapest way of getting there off season was to fly to Lisbon and then to drive. As such, we only spent 1 day in Portugal.

After touring the Donana National Park we drove to our hotel in Portugal. We were staying near Albufeira which is a thriving resort town – in summer. In the winter about 80% of the stores and hotels were boarded up. It made finding meals a little complicated and I’m glad we had the car. Our hotel was on the beach, well sort of. The beach is at the bottom of some cliffs and our hotel was at the top, so if we were on the same elevation the hotel would have been right on the beach. Still there was an easy walking path down to the shore and it was very convenient.

Portuguese Beach in Olhos de Agua

Portugal has some truly gorgeous beaches; the water is turquoise, the sand is white, and the cliffs provide seclusion. I can see why the place would be hopping in the summer time, and why most of the people we encountered were retirees. They were also British. Not sure what that’s about, but it seems the Algarve is the place to have a tropical beach house if you are a well to do Brit.

Cove we found hiking near Benagil Beach, Portugal

While the weather was lovely, it wasn’t quite warm enough to swim or even to sun bathe, so we only walked on the beach. We also had plans to visit this cool cave. If you want to see the cave you must drive to the closest fishing village and convince a fisherman to take you out there. Recently it’s become very popular to see the caves and there are now 2 guys who only take tourists out – no fishing. Regardless, when we showed up, those 2 guys weren’t there, and the gents in the snack shop weren’t sure anyone would be going out. The sea was a bit rough, and the waves were too large for the boats we would be taking – think 12 seater row boat. Slightly disappointed we left, but decided to stay in the area and check out some other beaches. After an hour or so we returned, but our would-be guides were still nowhere to be found. We realized we wouldn’t be seeing the cave this trip. Instead, we followed a hiking trail along the top of the cliffs. We got to spend time in the sunshine and staring out into the turquoise waters – not a bad day

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European Food Crops

Orange Tree!

Outside the cities, European landscape quickly becomes farm land. Each country grows plants that are integral to their national products; vineyards lace across France, hops towers in the German fields, and apple orchards dot the English countryside. When we were driving around southern Portugal and Spain, I knew the plants growing in the fields adjacent to the highway were commercial, but it took me some time to identify them.

The easiest trees were the citrus trees—their branches were bulging with oranges and lemons. Next came the olive trees; they too were easy to pick out thanks to our earlier trips to Italy, and like the citrus trees, their boughs were covered in the fruit. I realized somewhat belatedly that the pine trees were cultivated for their pine nuts; I should have remembered them from Italy as well. There were two more difficult to identify species in the fields. The tall leafy trees came into my mind abruptly when I remembered seeing their picture on a pack of cough drops—eucalyptus. The last tree involved more observation to identify. I noticed the bark had been stripped off the trunks and I recalled reading about cork oaks; every 9 years the bark is carefully cut away and turned into bottle stoppers.

If you look at the bark carefully, you can see it's two different colors.
The darker color is where the cork was stripped off.

Near Granada there were also almond and pomegranate trees growing. Pomegranates are actually the symbol of Granada; they are featured in sculpture and mosaics all over the city. This should come as no surprise when you learn the Spanish word for pomegranate is granada. Unfortunately during our visit it wasn’t quite pomegranate season yet, so we didn’t eat them at every meal.