Visiting the Algarve section of Portugal is always a pleasure.  The climate has warm days, cool nights and essentially no humidity (or mosquitoes!).  We stayed in an Air BNB home that suited our group perfectly.  It was seven minutes away from the beach, ten minutes from the marina and sat on a hilltop to overlook the entire area.  And did I mention it had a wonderful pool in this  charming four bedroom/3 bath home.  The modern furniture, tiled floors, spacious bedrooms and bathrooms and the best equipped kitchen of any rental I have ever stayed in!  See for yourself.

The house was so warm, comfortable and enjoyable, we spent a great deal of time there enjoying the pool and cooking in the fabulous kitchen.  When we did venture out, touring the countryside and the mountainous rock formations of the beach to see the caves and dolphins was my personal favorite experience – well, only second to the incredibly fresh fish available in this seaside resort town.

On the cave tour we also went out looking for dolphins and found them.  There was a school of dolphins ready to perform for us.  While frolicking in the ocean, one jumped out the water as if dancing in the air. The sheer joy of watching a creature of the sea perform for us as if on cue was simply delightful and I was fortunate to get it on video, see below.

It’s impossible to go to Portugal and not experience the fine wines and even better port.  We sampled some with each meal and was never disappointed.  It was a pleasure to bring back to the USA the maximum 2 bottle/per person limit.  Make sure you visit the local stores in Centro Albuferia, the prices cannot be beat for the wines and ports. Try the 2004 Kopke Colheita Porto, it was our favorite.  The complexity and depth of flavor of the white ports should not be missed as well.  Each time we sip some, the memories come flooding back of a time we drifted to another land and loved it.

Our final night was spent in Lisbon before boarding the flight the following morning back home.  We went to “Time Out”, a local place to watch the World Cup on giant screens and order from a bevy of great restaurants along the perimeter of the building.  This space is like a football sized building with great long tables and stools and plenty of bars – even the food establishments sold wines. And they had a wine store in the place to take your favorite bottle back with you.  We certainly obliged that recommendation.  This place reminded me of the Reading Terminal Market in Philly, but 10 times the size and with uniformed, beautiful food booths from ALL nationalities.  See for yourself.

I look forward to returning to Portugal, such pleasant memories.

Our next adventure is Iceland…….