Portugal Friday, March 3/23

 Weather:  Beautiful day:  Temperature high 17C and blue skies.  

We spent an hour at the inside pool.  All by ourselves until a German couple came in to use the sauna.  

Local Villages

In one of the last posts I talked about Lagos, but on the way to Lagos we went through Estombar and then Calvario.  These are villages or towns where the Portuguese live away from the holiday homes and commercial aspects of the tourist Algarve.   The Algarve is very hilly and most of the towns here are literally hill towns from ancient times.  Estombar is beautifully white in the sun and you can see it for several miles along the highway.  Unfortunately the very small villages in the mountains are dying as young people look for better prospects.  Same in Italy, Spain, etc. where the old ways don't work anymore.

Calvario is off the local road but the locals have decorated the roundabout.

You find these decorated roundabouts occasionally and you know instantly that the local 
people have constructed it.  There are beautiful roundabouts in Albufeira that are professionally made but they don't have the charm of the local efforts.

More Local Fare

A few posts back I talked about grocery stores.  They are pretty much the same as home except that the parking lots have canvas canopies to keep cars cool in the sun.  Otherwise the fish department is the major difference with the other being that large areas of every grocery store are devoted to wine and spirits.  Here is a picture from the center isle of our Intermarche.  

Always good produce.  The red peppers are twice the size of home