SUNGRL

Today we played one of the Oceanico courses in Vilamoura – Oceanico Victoria. Oceanico have seven courses in this area that they refer to as the seven wonders.

Oceanico Victoria was designed by Arnold Palmer and completed in 2004.
The Oceanico Victoria , which covers some 90 hectares, is the most recent golf course project of Arnold Palmer in Portugal. As one of the best and most sophisticated golf courses in Europe, every care has been taken to ensure the preservation of the wetlands and the typical vegetation of carob, olive and almond trees.

Host to the Portugal Masters 2007-2014
Host to the PGA World Cup 2005

Despite our lack of sleep we both played really well. I had nine pars! We enjoyed the course which again we played under the clear blue skies and hot temperatures that we have come to know and love : )

We had a very social weekend in the Algarve.

On Saturday we went to the Lemon Tree or O Limoeiro in Portugese for lunch. The food was excellent – all home made with fresh ingredients and herbs and spices. The oat cakes, pate and apricot jelly were delicious!

Sunday is a big day in the Algarve – people go out with their families to restaurants or to the beach. A lot of the restaurants have live music – the weather, wine and food make for quite a festive atmosphere.

We went back to BJ’s and had another lovely meal. They had an English guy on guitar singing and he was great. His name was Stewart and he had spent 6 months living in NZ. He sang the Crowded House song Weather with You for us. Apparently his wife had a thing for Neil Finn back in the day.

It also turns out that the chef at BJ”s – Peter or Pedro as they refer to him – had also lived in Auckland for 6 months. He was the chef at Manuka in Devonport. Peter is originally from Wales.

After a great afternoon drinking Sangria and listening to music at BJ’s we decided to go to a sports bar in Almancil called Lennon’s Bar & Grill. Steve wanted to watch the last round of the Players Championship. I waited in the car while he went in to check if it was on and apparently he was greeted by these Irish and English guys who of course were watching football. Steve had a word and when they found out he was from NZ they were OK about him changing the channel once the football was finished. One of the guys said that his daughter lived in NZ.

Not only did his daughter live in NZ but she lived in the Hawkes Bay. Not only does she live in the Hawkes Bay she actually lives next door to us – Karen is our next door neighbour in Havelock North. We had caught up with Karen and her husband Greg a few times before we left NZ and Karen (originally from the UK) said her Dad lived near Faro in the Algarve. What are the chances! Anyway it was all on then – lots of banter with the boys in the bar.

We also met an Irish guy from Dublin called Alan. He and his Portuguese wife Liz run a large property management company down in the area that we are staying in. Alan had many a story to tell as the Irish always do. He called his wife Liz and she came down to have a drink also. It was great getting a local’s perspective on Portugal. Stand by for my blog on Portugal, the country, coming to a computer screen near you soon. Anyway we went out for lunch at 1pm and 12 hours later we crawled into bed – a great day and it really is a small world after all.

PS – Steve was so busy socialising with his new found friends that he didn’t get to watch much golf and woke up this morning wondering who had won.

Another fairly relaxed day in the Algarve. It started with a run for both of us – yes you did read that right – Stevie took to the streets!

A little trip to the shopping Mall – Forum Algarve – which is quite a large mall in Faro. It has this massive supermarket called Jumbo. Sad as this sounds – I quite enjoy looking round these foreign supermarkets and seeing what they have to offer. Jumbo is by far the cheapest in the area with all the main brands plus the local specialities.

We then went for lunch at BJ’s which is just down the beach from Vale do Lobo towards Quarteira. This place is slowly becoming our local. Great food right on the beach. Today they had a three piece band called The Business playing – they were great fun and involved everyone in the restaurant.

They have a dress up box where you can grab a hat or a wig or whatever takes your fancy and put it on. The staff also indulge themselves as did the band.

It was a great afternoon : )

Today we played the second course in Vale do Lobo – the Royal Course.

We found this course tighter & shorter than the Ocean Course. It was still really nice & well kept. The bird life on the course is good & the golf club encourages it by providing shelters for the birds. I saw these three large geese waddling along the path – when we came up the 11th here they were sitting in a perfect row on the green taking it all in – see a couple of photos below.

The 16th hole is a par three with cliff top carryover – one of the most celebrated golfing images in the world, which has become the veritable symbol of golf in the Algarve.

Another enjoyable round while basking in the Algarve sun : )

On our way back from Sagres we decided to call in to Portimao which is still in the western Algarve. Portimao is the biggest town in the western Algarve and sits on the bank of the Arade river facing Ferragudo on the opposite bank. It has a population of 55,000 which is slightly less than Faro which has a population of 64,000.

The main beach Praia da Rocha has become a resort in it’s own right over the years. We had lunch over looking the Praia da Rocha.

Portimao is a port for the cruise ships visiting Portugal and has plenty of bars and restaurants. Apparently it is one of the best places for shopping in the Algarve.

Today we took a road trip to Sagres and Cape St Vincent – this is the south western most point of Portugal & Europe.

The Cape is a landmark for all ships travelling to the Mediterranean. The cliffs around the cape rise near vertically from the Atlantic to a height of 75 metres. The cliffs were quite spectacular. This is also a common spot for surfers – apparently the surf is always up somewhere at the Cape due to the west Atlantic Ocean creating such good waves for surfing. We saw some surfers heading for the beach just prior to the road to the Cape – they had a number of boards, backpacks and a toddler in the front pack. A family day out.

The present lighthouse is 24 metres high and was built over the ruins of a 16th century Franciscan convent in 1846. This lighthouse, guarding one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes, is among the most powerful in Europe – it’s two 1,000 watt lamps can be seen up to 60km away.

We noticed that the landscape changed the closer we got to the Cape – someone had described it to us as something out of Wuthering Heights and we could see what she was saying. It was quite mystical and very windy. The wind made it quite a cool spot which is obviously quite a common theme given the vendors selling ponchos and woollen hats outside the lighthouse. We toughed it out in our summer gears though.

Apparently the sunsets at the Cape are spectacular.

We then drove back to Sagres – it is quite a tranquil town with a pretty harbour. As mentioned above it is popular with the surfers and the beaches are lovely. It is not so popular with the tourists yet. We had a very pleasant wander on the beach and sat and watched the happenings from two little concrete seats.

Tonight we had dinner at the Scot’s place we met last week at one of the restaurants on the beach – Gus & Sheila. They had some friends visiting from Scotland – Nicholas & Veronica.

We got some NZ lamb from the supermarket and Steve used their charcoal BBQ to cook it. He hadn’t cooked using charcoal before so it was trial and error.

Nicholas got the BBQ going with some expert fanning with the newspaper. The lamb was put on the BBQ and the lid put on. Half an hour later the BBQ seemed to have lost it’s heat so into the oven went the lamb. Again Nicholas came to the rescue with some more expert fanning with the newspaper and reignited the BBQ. On went the lamb again.

It cooked within no time the second time around. Steve & I thought the lamb was a bit overcooked but it turns out these Scots like their meat well done so all in all a good result.

It was a great night with lots of laughs. We are now planning our trip to Scotland for later in the year : )

Please appreciate the picture below – it took a little working out how to set the Samsung Galaxy up on the timer. Left to right back row – Nicholas, Steve & Gus. Left to right front row – Sheila, Veronica & me.

Today we played the Vale do Lobo Ocean Course. This course is 5 minutes walk from where we are staying. We had read and heard that is the lesser of the two courses in Vale do Lobo but we thought it was great and really enjoyed it. It is a bit hilly in places but that added to the experience and was good exercise pushing our trundlers up and down.

The golf club has been in existence since 1968 and has held the Portugese Open in 2002 and 2003.

Today being Sunday we did what all good people should do on a Sunday – relax. That probably sounds like everyday for us at the moment and you’d probably be right.

We went for a walk in the Ria Formosa again today. The bird life is quite prolific which is good to see. They have these bird watching towers along the walk so you can sit in there and watch the birds in their natural habitats.

We hit golf balls again in preparation for our round tomorrow.

We then went back to Vilamoura for lunch. It is such a great spot to people watch, read our books and soak up the sun.

They also have a Costa Coffee place there which does a nice soy decaf latte. It also sells beer so Stevie is also very happy too. The Poms complain that Costa is expensive – Costa Lot but the coffee and beer are both cheaper than NZ so no complaints here : )

The Loule Farmers Market is held every Saturday morning. The market building is open all week long, but each Saturday local farmers head to town and offer their wares in the streets and alleys that surround the Mercado (market) building.

Flowers, bedding plants, fruits, vegetables, herbs, homemade cakes, eggs, cheeses, chourico (chorizo is the Spanish equivalent), presunto (dry cured ham), bacalhau (dried and salted cod) are all on offer by friendly locals.

Inside the market building are a lot of fish vendors and it is very smelly! They are there every day except Sunday.

We indulged in the berries – strawberries, blueberries and raspberries. I bought some goats cheese to go with the fig and almond roll – yummo! The 2kg of strawberries we bought cost EU3.50 or NZD5.60 The raspberries cost us EU1.00 or NZD1.60 and the blueberries EU2.00 or NZD3.20. I think we’ll be back there next Saturday : )

The picture of Steve with a beer was taken at lunch today – he is much happier with this size beer!