Viva La Vita

We were happy the power had been restored! Morning coffee is a necessity and power is required to brew it! LOL!

We did laundry, picked up around the apartment, and browsed around Alvor. We had a fantastic ribeye steak at The Ribeye Steak House. When at the Ribeye Steak house, one must try the ribeye! It was a nice day.

Tomorrow we head to Lagos for a few hours. Then go on a guided tour of Sagres, Porto da Baleeira, Praia do Beliche, and Cape St Vincent (The End of the World). We knew we had a big day tomorrow, so, we kept things low key today. Ready for adventure tomorrow!

The Azure-winged magpie.

Our power came on around 11:45pm last night! YAY. More about today later! Our evening:

In case you have not seen Europe news today: power outage for Spain, Portugal and part of France. Power outage in Portugal at 11:30am. It’s now 8:26pm in Portugal and we do not have power yet.

We are safe! We are in Alvor at our VRBO.

This will be all for today as we need to conserve phone battery power. Hopefully we will have power soon.

Carpe diem—we did just that today!

What a great day!! Went on a catamaran tour of the southern west coast of Portugal and stopped at the Ponta da Piedade (sea pillars, shady grottoes, and rock arches). The tour also included a dingy ride into the caves and around the pillars and arches. JUST BEAUTIFUL!!

We met some very nice folks on the catamaran: Irish, Canadians, and Dutch. The Irish were a hoot! Mary and I referred to them as the “fun girls”. There were 6 of them traveling on a 5 day trip together to Alvor. We laughed and laughed with them. Their ages varied, they all attended the same university and all lived in the same area of Ireland. So fun.

The tour lasted about 3 hours. This was the beast beach/sea day we have experienced while in Alvor.

Came back to our apartment, had lunch, then sat on the beach for a couple of hours.

Then headed into town for a late dinner 20:15ish Alvor time. Caught the end of the sunset from our table at the Alota restaurant in Alvor. Our dinner was amazing!

69-71 degrees F and not a cloud in the sky! Our best Alvor beach day yet. We had lunch on the beach. Walked on the beach and the wind was calm. We saw a group of folks walking in the water…not certain what their purpose was, but Mary thinks it was a senior water aerobics class (hahaha). Who knows, but looked like they were having lots of fun.

We had a nice dinner at Napoli. Nice people and great food!

We took an hour stroll around the village, caught the sunset and walked off some of our dinner.

Tomorrow is an adventure day….STAY TUNED!

We traveled back to Alvor, Portugal today. The temps were warmer than when we left and cooler (about 10 degrees F cooler) than Seville, Spain. We were happy to return to sunshine in Alvor!!!

We had lunch in the village at one of our favorite restaurants and yes, we split a piece of their famous lemon meringue pie—it was delicious!

We went to our “store that has everything” and purchased a laundry/grocery cart. We have discussed how convenient having “one of those roller carts” would be with the distance we seem to be traveling on foot each day to get groceries, water and now to do laundry so we did laundry—our day was good. Ready for a beach day tomorrow!

More excursions coming ahead

Stork nest. Storks build nests on top of power line towers near the ocean. You can see the small head of a baby stock peeking out. There were many Stork nests on our journey to Alvor, Portugal from Seville, Spain.

We toured the Catedral de Sevilla. Our guide was very entertaining and informative. The tour lasted 2 hours. We climbed the bell tower (known as the Giralda-named after the weathervane on the top of the tower) in the catedral. There were 34 sloping ramps and 17 steps to the top. The views were beautiful. We then completed the tour of the remainder of the Catedral.

We also went on a horse drawn carriage ride around Seville. That was a nice experience and a break from the walking. The ride lasted about 40 minutes.

We had a nice late lunch. Mary finally had her long awaited paella. She enjoyed it.

We took a 2 hr break at our apartment. Then headed back out to see the Setas de Sevilla at night.

It was another good day! Tomorrow morning we will say: Hasta luego Sevilla! (See you later Seville!)

View from Bell tower. Mid photo is Historic bull fighting ring (Plaza de Toros). It opened in 1881.

Ishmael (our guide) talking about the mahogany and Ivory organ in the Cathedral.

Camelia and her carriage.

Setas de Sevilla

We were all over Seville today. We started our day by walking to the Mercado de Triana (market) which is located along the Guadalquivir River. We looked around the market and ate lunch there. Explored some of the tourist shops, checked out the Metropol Parasol and headed back to our apartment as it was roughly 2:30pm. We had a 2 hour walking tour arranged for 5pm.

We enjoyed the walking tour. Our guide was very friendly and knowledgeable. He was born near Seville and studied at Seville University. Our tour included a history of the following: The Catedral de Sevilla, the Royal Alcazar of Seville, Plaza de Espana, Hotel Alfonso XIII, among others.

We are winding down and calling it another “buenos dias”!

Buenas noches.

Posted 1 day late

Our day started with an UBER ride (7:30am pickup) to Portimao, Portugal to take a bus to Seville, Spain. We arrived in Seville around 2pm 4/22/25. The bus ride over was pleasant. The countryside was beautiful. Mostly there were farms of grape orchards, orange groves and olive trees. It was amazing to experience how the bus driver could maneuver the large bus down city streets where I would not dare drive my truck…LOL! Very skilled drivers!

We checked into our apartment around 3pm. We were pleasantly surprised to have our own private rooftop. The room is great also!

We walked around the city, visited our local market, and had a nice meal at a Tapas bar near our apartment.

Un gran comienzo en Sevilla (A great beginning in Seville).

At the Faro airport: “Os Observatories” by artist Teresa Sofia Paulino. These figures were placed as an exhibition of 20 years of the Faro airport. AKA: Plane Watchers Sculptures.

We were excited to sit on the beach today! The wind was mild and temperature 64-65 degrees F. It was a relaxing day.

We also packed for our trip to Seville, Spain. We leave early tomorrow morning. Temps in Seville are predicted as follows:Tuesday-76F, Wednesday-83F, Thursday-86F, and Friday- 84F. We come back to Alvor on Friday. Temps are predicted to warm up in Alvor this week also 71F-75F for this week.

We have a walking tour set up for Seville for Wednesday morning.

We have a few excursions planned for when we get back to Alvor—more big fun and exploration!

Now that was some cold water!