Journal

A week in Portugal

Lost in translation
“We are never, ever flying to a foreign country again when it’ll be dark when we arrive!” I ranted, as we drove into the darkness on a road somewhere outside Faro, lost just ten minutes after picking up the rental car from the airport.

Despite seemingly having access to all the other benefits of 21st century technology, Portugal appeared to lack the bare essentials I’d come to expect over the last decade or so of being a driver. Okay, I’ll concede that it’s expensive to run electricity cables everywhere in order to light the signs. But what about those cats eye things that I’ve seen in many other countries? Surely they could stretch to some of those to make the junctions a damn sight less terrifying while you’re trying to avoid the racey natives, hell bent on getting to where ever they’re going.

Two and a half hours of second guessing ourselves later, we happened upon our destination of Parque de Floresta, for our weeks’ stay in my Auntie Alison’s holiday villa.

Once we were shown to the villa by a lady from reception, we wolfed down the pizzas that the restaurant had furnished us with at short notice, before going straight to bed, exhausted from our travels.

Familiar faces
Next morning we woke to brilliant sunshine and a beautiful blue sky, as the full splendour of the resort was unveiled in the warm light of day. In the main, it’s a golfing destination, and even thought I don’t play the game I could see the attraction of playing in a place like Portugal. We were there for some rest and recuperation, though, and left the golf to the well to do folk that looked bronzed enough to have spent most of the year there.

Instead, we planned to drive into Lagos to meet Kieran and Ele, the friends we’d said goodbye to back in June when they’d set sail from Liverpool in their boat Dart Warrior.

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