Portugal was not really on my radar until last year when I saw someone's pictures from the Algarve region, Portugal's southern coast. It was rocky with tons of caves to explore. It looked beautiful and I wanted to go!
For President's Day weekend, we found a direct flight from Karlsruhe to Faro, Portugal and decided it would be a great time to go! The weather would be warmer than Germany, but not yet too hot to be enjoyable.
We booked an Airbnb in Albufeira, just about 40 minutes drive from Faro. It was very convenient to the center of town with lots of restaurants and shops, but far enough outside the center to still be peaceful. And it was a close walk to the beach.
One of the best things about our Airbnb is that it was nearby to a bakery with amazing pastel de nata. I should have brought a whole box of them home!
Walking along the beach and snapping photos from above was part of the fun of the trip!
The weekend coincided with the Carnival celebrations. We are not big partiers, so we did not seek out the Carnival events. But we did happen upon one of the parades after getting some gelato. Carnival is the pre-Lent celebration where they get dressed up in costume and have a lot of fun! I have seen a lot of my German friend posts about Fasching which is their equivalent to Carnival. It sounds like a wild and crazy experience!
Being the crazy cat lady that I am, my husband knew I would be interested to visit Albufeira's cat park. It was basically just a pier where a bunch of cats live. But it did give us some great views!
Like much of the rest of Europe, Portugal has a thriving wine making industry. We booked a wine and tapas tour where we were picked up from our Airbnb in a tuk tuk and driven through town to one of the local wineries. We saw carob trees and learned a bit about caring for vines in the fields. We saw inside the winery where all the tanks are and then tasted four wines while nibbling on meats and cheeses. It was a delightfully sunny day which made it even better!
No comments:
Post a Comment