I was shocked the garage was not open this morning at 7:30 when we're ready to leave as we have a long day of driving ahead from Lagos all the way to Algeciras, Spain. Luckily it opened at 8a and we promptly drove to our first stop along the way, Silves. It's a small town with a pretty castle and a cathedral. After a quick photo op and short walk, we went to Sao Bras de Alportel where we found a local market and bought some pastries for breakfast. We were relieved for most part, the locals here in rural Portugal do not haggle you for money or try to sell you some useless junks. We were left alone to do our exploration.
Next stop is Tavira which is a very pretty town on the coast. It was at low tide and there was a fisherman there in the middle of the river digging for something. You can tell there were lots of tourists in this town as there were even tuk-tuks for rent!
Crossing the border brought us to Spain which is huge compared to Portugal and which exerted lots of influences on Portugal. Portugal would have been part of Spain easily if the Portugese didn't put up lots of fight. We checked out the Costco at Seville out of curiosity but other than a few extra items, we were disappointed. Cheese and wines are very very cheap here in Europe compared to Canada and they are all so very good! Too bad we can't bring it back.
We reached Algeciras by late afternoon and had time to walk to ferry terminal and buy our tickets to Ceuta early tomorrow morning. Algeciras is a port and don't have much to see for tourists. Most people just transit here to Africa, either Ceuta or Tangier, Morocco.
Our hotel has a balcony with a nice view to Gibraltar which we took advantage of by having our takeout dinner there with a fine bottle of good and inexpensive Spanish red wine!
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