Portugal
I have been to Portugal or the Algarve three times now. The
first was with a group of 12 friends and we hired a huge six bedroom villa complete
with patio, barbecue and pool. It was great fun. We messed around the pool by
day, went out at night and partied then messed around some more by the
pool later on in the early hours of the morning.
The Villa was in a little village called Boliqueme, just outside the marina and golfing town
of Villamora. High up in the hills
the sea breeze couldn’t reach us and our pool area had amazing views of the
valley below. On the night of arrival a
member of the party gave us all some “fun” Portuguese Ludo notes, the currency
before the Euro. He'd done a really good job except and as a joke he put one of our
friends grinning face on the note with a cartoon crown on his head. It was
meant to be a private joke amongst us, but one friend got a little tipsy in the
bar and accidently paid for a her drinks with hers. No-one noticed, not even the barman realised and accepted them as real
currency! Needless to say, when she woke up the next morning and realised her
mistake, we made a group pact never to return to said bar again.
We went down into the marina and like Puerta Banus, it was
full of expensive yachts surrounded by designer’s shops restaurants, bars and
of course an Irish pub complete with outside fountain… I guess the architects
never considered the Brits abroad when adding certain features to the Marina!
If you’re uncertain of what I’m getting at just think, Irish Pub and Fountain!
Yup it was full of revellers splashing around every night! I loved the food and
became quite addicted to Clam Chowder and other fresh seafood dishes. 
We were only there for a week and it was much more a holiday
for friends who don’t see each other very often to get together, but we did
manage a barbecue party. A member of our group had family also holidaying out
there we so we invited them, another friend had friends who lived close by so
they came too and the owner/manager of the villa lived next door so we invited
them along until there was about twenty of us. A decent number to call a party!
We had a trip out to Albefera, which was much more the old
Portuguese architecture one would assume Portuguese towns should look like.
Winding pedestrian streets, no traffic and quaint little shops and restaurants.
Very Civilised. Until we went to Montechoro, which I can only describe as
the Magaluf of the Algarve. Or what we saw of it anyway. It was the only day
that the weather was truly hideous and so we decided on an afternoon pub crawl
down the main strip.It was such a giggle, the 12 of us getting merry and silly and as it was our last night, when we returned to the villa a huge vat of wine that had been untouched all week, so that was cracked open.
with much merriment and skinny dipping in the villa pool until the sun came up! Hilarious end to a
great holiday.
The Second time I went was dreadful. Just myself and a different female
friend. We thought it a good idea to go for a week just after Christmas and spend
the New Year there. Besides it being freezing, with no hire car to go anywhere,
the apartments were much more family orientated. One family in particular became rather over friendly with my mate on the first night there. She danced all
night with their daughter and told them all I fancied their 21 year old son!!! I wondered
why his mum and dad were constantly patting me on the back as they talked to
me. It then took several days to get the message across to my new found stalker
that I wasn’t interested.
My friend then copped with a guy from Stoke who she then had
a holiday romance with and I spent the best part of a week having to hang out
with his friend who was several prawns short of a barbecue as well as the stalker she’d introduced me to on the first night, but enough of that disastrous
holiday.
My third time was a much more pleasant experience. The friends who lived out near Bolliqueme invited three of us from the original holiday party back to stay with them. They showed us around the Algarve properly and even took us on the slowest train EVER to Faro, Portugal’s capital, where I could take in some much needed culture. *sigh* It was only a week, but we hit some of our old haunts we’d enjoyed so much a few years earlier and caught up with old friends. A lovely time, but I’ve never really been inspired to put Portugal or Spain into one of my novels as a great destination. Maybe I will when I run out of other ideas. Lol!
Alison's Website www.alisonkershaw.com
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