Faro Favourites.

Oh me, oh my, this was just this time last week!
Our last day in Portugal was spent in Faro. As we had to leave the villa in the early morning and our flight from Faro back to Bristol wasn't until the evening, we figured that the most logical step was to have a day out in the Algarve's capital city.


In hindsight I guess it was a little bit of a mistake, I found Faro itself a little run down and it was very difficult to kill 7 hours. We started at Forum Algarve and, feeling particularly cultured, most of us picked up McDonalds for lunch - it wasn't bad you know...



I think all the best oranges in the square had already been picked.





The sea being so close to the railway line reminded me of a less romantic Spirited Away. We were offered to head over this bay to a nature reserve, at €5 and €5 back for such a short trip it was a little steep so we gave it a miss. Would have been cool to see what a nature reserve on the edge of a busy city had to offer though.


I wish the perspective on this was a little better, this bird's nest was huge and plonked in the middle of a roundabout!




I guess you could say that some of the street art was a little confusing...


I really liked that so many of the houses in the Algarve were tiled, even in Faro where they were slightly worst for wear, they still helped to brighten up the neighbourhood.






After wandering through the old town and finally finding the real town, it was decided if we weren't up for doing much then checking out the beach might be a good idea. This was the best choice, Praia de Faro is a beautiful blue flag beach which, sounds a bit weird, has the softest sea. Relaxing with a (delicious) passionfruit lemonade at Monkey's before walking along the beach was a pretty nice way to finish up our holiday.



I couldn't resist a paddle, even if it did mean getting a bit splashed. I kind of wish we'd made our last day a bit more of a beach-related day, although there's probably enough to see in Faro for a few hours, with the amount of time we had to kill, kicking back might have been a better thing to do.

Market Day :: Alte

I think my favourite photographs from the whole holiday were the ones I took in Alte. A short 35-minutes inland from Albufeira, we popped over to Alte for their market and were promised a traditional Portuguese town with whitewashed houses and cobbled streets - it didn't disappoint.




The market in Alte takes place on the third Thursday of the month and despite the fact that I forget about livestock trading being totally cool in most parts of Europe (there were the tiniest baby bunnies. sad), it was a pretty good, a bustling place full of a variety of stalls.











Despite the smell I do kind of wish I'd got around to trying some salt cod, just to see you know. Reminded me of my daytrip to Tai O when I was in Hong Kong a few summers ago.





These were really some of the most beautiful views I saw in Portugal, better than any seaside sunset (although the view from our villa was pretty swag). It's an environment so far removed from what I'm used to but in the best way possible.





It's sounds a little morbid to say but Alte's cemetery is definitely worth a visit. Far from being a place filled with sadness, you get more of a feeling that life and death are celebrated and honoured here, and there's something quite heartwarming about that.






Gecko was one of my favourite Algarve finds. I don't think you can visit Portugal without having a little chilli and to find a shop totally dedicated to it was great. I came away with some of their delightful chocolate chilli fudge, so good! ♥






The roads to and from Alte are made for fun driving, it's a shame we didn't have Moon's convertible, at least we could still take advantage of the views.


I'd definitely recommend visiting Alte if you ever visit the Algarve. Despite the fact that we only really picked it because it was the only place holding a market that we could get to during our short stay, it was a beautiful place to walk around and really gave a more authentic feel for Portugal. It made a nice change from the seaside scenes we'd been used to and I guess looks 'most like' what you expect Portugal to look like.