About towns

One of the best things Marlon and I did on our Algarve trip was to rent a car. All the guide books agree that it's definitely the best way to get around, especially during holidays like Easter when the buses are down. At about €25/day (about Php1,600/day... cheaper than some car rentals in Manila!), the convenience and fun we got for our money just couldn't be beat. It was our first holiday with a car... and now we know what we've been missing. We'll definitely do it again!

The main advantage of having a car was being able to explore the towns of the Algarve. We would hit two, sometimes three towns in a day. We'd set out every morning from our digs at the Rio Arade in the sleepy little town of Estombar...

... and with Marlon at the wheel and CidadeFM blaring on the radio, drive along the big A22 highway or the smaller, closer-to-town N125 for anywhere from 20 minutes to a full hour and a half.

On these drives, I discovered that we're probably the last people to find out about the Algarve. Waves upon waves of retirees from the United Kingdom have beat us to it. This made finding... shall we say, authenticity and charm a little bit difficult at times. I admit I was disconcerted at how packed and touristy some of the bigger towns were, especially in their old centres. 

I got a little spooked by the sight of so many retirement condos rising up everywhere, eerily similar in their homogeneity to the pastel HDBs of Singapore and the faux Mediterranean-themed housing developments of our very own Philippines. And so many of them were just empty, like sprawling ghost Pleasantvilles, which I found oddly unsettling. 

I've never thought so much about old age and retirement while on vacation. I'm not sure I'd like to spend my vacation in a sanitized Mediterranean matchbox. Still, I can't judge... and I may eat my words when I'm older.

Still, there was authenticity and charm to be found in the towns of the Algarve—we simply had to walk a few extra steps and drive a few extra miles to small towns like Silves, with its red Moorish fort perched on top of a hill... 

... beside a cathedral that waited for a Easter procession to make its way up a winding road, solemnly silent but for the strangely mournful music of a police brass band... 

... and the soft drop of roses onto sun-bleached stone.

We drove to the center of Portimao, where we waited out a thunderstorm and ended up on its lovely marina, dangling our feet over the water.

Looking beyond the tourist kitsch peddled in the center of Lagos, I saw beautiful tiled plazas and buildings that reminded me of some photos I've seen of Macau, a Portuguese colony closer to home...

... an old cathedral made new by the festivity of Easter...

... and reminders that Portugal was once a colonizing force to be reckoned with. 

The Slave Market, where slaves from Guinea were first sold in Portugal, now an art gallery 

The old town of Albufeira, situated in a sort of basin or valley bordered by hills, was also pretty kitschy. But the higher we climbed, further away from the heavily touristed center...

... the more beauty we saw, in narrow alleyways and blue-skied panoramas alike.

We also went on longer drives to farther-flung towns, like Salema on the coast. The drive through the mountains to Salema was one of the most beautiful drives I've ever taken. I didn't have my camera with me, though, but I'll always remember it. The town itself was so pretty too. 

Old ladies standing on the main street offered us rooms in their houses. Each house had a name written on it in handpainted tile, giving each of them the dignity of a grand seaside villa. 

We had dinner in a little shack beside the sea and the sunset. It was one of the best meals of the trip.

Our longest drive was away from the coast and up the mountains to Monchique, a spa (a.k.a. hot springs) town. We didn't go there for the spa, but for dinner. An old goatherd and his flock was the first thing we saw when we got to the restaurant. You won't see that on the strip of resorts by the coast.

Blazing sun was replaced by cool mountain breezes, and sand and surf with a quiet grove of olive trees. 

On our last day, we drove into Quarteira to hunt down a Tripadvisor-recommended restaurant. It was the hardest to find out of all the places we tried to find on this trip, but by that time we knew it could only mean that we were about to get some genuinely good food.

Before driving to the airport in Faro, we stopped at a small, tree-shaded park so I could nap. I was just so sleepy. It turned out that I was in good company.

When I woke up I took some pictures of the surrounding architecture...

... which had become home to a surprising number of storks. 

I must have counted five or six nests in a single block. And that was all I saw of Faro.