Diary

From Lisbon we drove towards a more quiet region: To Porto. To the little sister of the capital as they say. We took two deviations from our route. First to Fatima with its huge monastery. But we actually did not see anything of it as there have not been any parking places left. Every place was occupied. And there are very many parking lots. Maybe it was because of the Sunday. We went on to Coimbra. There we spent much more time. We walked through the alleys. Uphill and downhill and admired again beautiful houses decorated with tile pattern and squiggled balconies. It is a wonder that all still exists and there are no architectural blunders from the 70s or 80s. In the early evening we checked into our hotel with a sea view. Here everybody was much more relaxed than in Lisbon. Breakfast here is nice and the Wifi

There was quite a difference between Algarve and Lisbon. Capital instead of steep coasts. Many people instead of much landscape. Traffic in Lisbon is rather exhausting and after taking our rental once to get to an appointment within the town the rental car stayed in the car park. And we changed to metro, taxi or tuk-tuk. That worked fine. We only took our breakfast once in the five star hotel and rather went for the rest of the week to small cafes which are also visited by the inhabitants. That was nice. At the hotel there was a lot of chaos and stress at the buffet. The waiter were overchallenged and it was noisy and hectically. That is not our idea of a relaxed breakfast. The touristic highlights have also not been our cup of tea. Dozens of coaches which spill out big tourist groups and people that queue in

Somehow we get lost in counting our weeks because we have been booked for ten days or longer – not that we would complain, though… Our second part of week 63 and week 64 we spent in Portugal at the Algarve. Algarve – dream like coast with steep rock walls, incredible colours of the water and very good mediteranien food. We stayed at the resort Quinta do Paraiso. And there was everything that defines a resort: pool, pool bar, animation, fixed and guided tours and buffets with a lot of well known dishes… We arrived late after our flight and picking up our rental car. We have been searching for our house in this huge area. We should search a couple of times though during the next days even with the  support – or shall we say misguidance? – of our sat nav. Our best times was 15 minutes search