Dispatches

Setting off from Nazaré we realised that by the time we reached the nice restaurant Faye had found for lunch in Spain, it would actually be an hour later than our already tight timings, as we’d forgotten about the change of time zone. So we went on the old ‘Morse family lookout’ for somewhere suitable to eat, involving leaving the motorway at towns that time and beauty had forgotten, and calling into motorway service stations where ‘restaurants’ were literally closed/boarded up. We eventually ended up at the Burger King in Salamanca at 4.20pm. Poor. ...

Temperatures were all over the place on today’s journey from Porto Covo up the coast to Nazaré, a fishing town and resort between Lisbon and Porto. A warmish morning on the coast led to sweltering inland weather into the mid-30s by the time we sat down for a (very poor) service station lunch. Arriving later at Nazaré, we were a full 15 degrees cooler, with a sharp wind and overcast skies greeting us as we set up the van in the pine trees of Ohai Outdoor Resort. Kept it interesting! Driving in, one thing was certain: The place has changed quite a bit from the out-of-the way, sleepy fishing town I first trudged to on foot with my friends on a post-uni European backpacking trip 34 years ago. Funny, that… ...

The drive up from Luz to Porto Covo was through noticeably greener countryside than Spain, with gently rolling hills and much uncovered, outdoor agriculture - a huge contrast to, for instance, the greenhoused, barren landscape of Almería. We got to admire it over lunch at the roadside Altura Steakhouse & Bar in Aljezur, where our meals came with a huge array of extras like salad, dips, black bean and vegetable fries alongside the usual chips, and where we all also had homemade desserts, chosen by eye from the chiller cabinet. ...

First three nights of this year’s summer expedition. Drove down to Lagos from Gibraltar, stopping at a well-placed Burger King just off the motorway outside of Sevilla for a patio lunch with dog tucked under table, before crossing the Guadiana International Bridge into Portugal. Grabbed a data Sim for Portugal to power up the WiFi from a Meo store at a shopping centre we suddenly recognised from a previous trip, then pushed on to Espiche, a couple of kms past Lagos and the same inland from Praia da Luz. It’s a very posh campsite, Yelloh! Algarve Turiscampo, with spacious gravel pitches, lots of greenery, indoor and outdoor pools, spa, restaurant, shop, snack bar etc. ...