Quiet morning. The morning after the night before. Also it's Halloween but I didn't really notice.
I got up late at 9am and after breakfast, Åsa gave Ulf and me a lift to Carvoeiro. Ulf and I were off to do a cliff top hike east along the Atlantic coast to Benagil.
The path was well indicated with these yellow and red markers.
Runkeeper application was put into GPS action and here are the statistics. We did very slow progress as we constantly stopped and checked out the sceneries as well as having a coffee break halfway through.
The very first section off Carvoeiro was on a boardwalk. Some money had been spent here as the boardwalk looked properly maintained and was very nice.
After hiking 1km or so, we arrived at this point. Down from the trail were bathroom facilities and a bar/cafe although the latter turned out to be closed.
Boneca means doll and somebody thought that the opening towards the water on the other side of this tunnel looked like... A doll. Sorry no picture but not even my vivid imagination could see any similarity with a doll.
There were various walkways and stairs off the point above and here I am looking scared while checking the distance down to the water.
Plenty of erosion had resulted in openings and tunnels like the below.
There was no question about the beauty of the walk. The path went up and down headland, along beaches and bays as here.
Alfonzino lighthouse and...
Plenty of blowholes as well.
Now, this beach was interesting and unique. Why?
Because the only access point is...
Ulf is demonstrating walking back up.
The beach itself. There were a handful of sun seekers and one swimmer, a guy who pinched his nose every time the waves rolled in.
The walk with break and exploration
took 3 hours almost to the minute.
We then had lunch at a restaurant in Benagil. Ulf called Åsa who came with the car and joined us for a feed.
Ulf and Åsa had an appointment to check out an apartment back in Carvoeiro as a potential property investment but it was time enough beforehand for a visit to a supermarket.
Here is Ulf shopping the absolutely essentials as Ulf and I drank the house dry of beer last night.
In the fish and seafood section, they were selling dourada, the lovely whole fish I had as lunch yesterday. Ulf maintains that the English name is golden bream.
Dourado in Portuguese means golden.
The supermarket of course had that mandatory stinky section of dried salty cod that seems to be everywhere in food shops.
This was a first for me. A big open grill inside the supermarket. I assumed that you can buy something of choice and they grill it for you.
At 4pm we met the guy outside the building who was going to show Ulf and Åsa that apartment. Top floor, left. The apartment was over 2 floors and with another balcony that you can't see in this picture.
I liked the apartment. I could see it as a good investment if the price was right. Below was the only drawback. A very narrow circular staircase connected the two floors. Not much space for yourself and never mind getting furniture and other large items up or down.
The apartment was small but it had 2 bedrooms and could house a family of 4.
Attractive for holiday makers would be the proximity to the beach and the views. This photo is taken from the lower level balcony.
Zooming out from the picture above. Access to the beach is through the stairs to the right.
Another shot from the balcony overlooking the township of
Carvoeiro. After the apartment inspection, we all went back to Ulf and Åsa's home at the Pestana Golf Resort.
Later, Åsa prepared dinner for us. Lovely grilled shrimps with chili and parsley as an entree.
For a main, she did something that was called tortilla lasagna (she showed me the recipe) which didn't make sense. Tortilla of course is the Spanish word for omelette and the sheets in this lasagna dish were of a corn.
With pieces of chicken inside, the dish looked like a lasagna but tasted distinctly Mexican. It was very tasty.
Ulf had some problems with his lower back. In Portugal, on a Saturday, you just call your Masseur and ask for a house visit. So Saturday evening at 7.30pm the Masseur arrived and worked on Ulf for an
hour. Try to get that in Australia. Ha!
Later, we watched a Swedish tv-program called "Så mycket bättre", translated into "So much better" in English.
The idea of the tv-program was that you took a famous Swedish musical artist with some back catalogue of songs. You then let a bunch of other Swedish musical artists select one song each, interpret it and sing it in front of the others.
Between the songs, there were interviews with all involved and filmed interactions between them all. A kind of friendlier version of Big Brother.
The program concept was all new to me.
My problem was that I never heard of the main artist Miriam Bryant before. Never have I heard of any of the "interpreters".
I also found that the language of several of the artists was very poor. Lots of swearing and redundant words.
Still, the program was oddly fascinating and I watched it for the full hour or so with Ulf and Åsa who are fans.
By 10.30pm the day had ran its course for all 3 of us and we all retired.
