Ruben and Patricia are our only companions in the evening of the 22nd

13:15 - We meet the first guests, Ruben and Patricia, who arrived by train, from Lisbon. Then we drive to the airport where I retrieve the rented car. Finally, we go shopping. We buy everything which may be needed for the next days, except the meat for barbecue. It takes some time and eventually we arrive the villa for some hours of relax.

19:30 - Laura arrives. We go out for diner. Great meal at Flor da Ameixa. After that we return to the villa and we stay for a while, chating by the candles light. We go to bed. I will have to wake up about 5 to meet the remaining persons in the nearby village, Bordeira.

23rd September 2008

04:30 - Rinnnnng. Phone wakes me up. Message from Pavel. They are arriving. I get up and pick a car, driving downhill, to Bordeira. Everything goes smoothly. Precisely at 04:49 I spot a car full of tourists. My guys. So I escort the fellows to the villa. It's time to drop the lugage and start an unexpected conversation and droping a few couples of wine. It's already daylight when we finally go sleep. About 7, I guess.

10:00 - Time to wake up, the sequel. Alexey and Ruben go into the swimming pool. People have their breakfast and shortly we are in the cars, heading to Vilamoura (B). This is the place where I live a good part of the year. It's close to the seaside, and home of the main portuguese marina. Before we got there, we stop for a while to visit the wonderful church of São Lourenço de Almancil. We walk around, killing some time before we meet Laura. Meanwhile Patricia left in the morning, taking a ride with Laura, to spend the day in Lagos with a friend of her.

13:00 - We meet Laura at her shop in Almancil (C) and afterwards we drive to Vale do Lobo (D), my favorite beach. The idea was just providing a glance of this marvellous beach to the guys but something went "wrong". Suddenly everybody is in the water. Apparently people is having a really good time. Which is strange. As I don't consider this kind of weather apropriate to swim. Too cold and barely sunny. Finally I got the whole gang out of the water and we return to the initial plan.

15:00 - We visit a few spots (beaches, cliffs) before we stop at Carvoeiro (E), a lovely village - well, is used to be a village before mass tourism - by the beach. We walk around and we have an ice cream. Then we go towards Lagos.

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18:00 - We arrive Ponta da Piedade, not far from Lagos (F). We are supposed to meet Patricia there. She's a little delayed so we agree in a new meeting point, Camilo's beach. It's time for a break. Some guys order drinks and food in the local "cafe" and everybody enjoy the great views. We even go down, to the sand, just before sunset. The water is calm, warm and clear.

20:00 - And is now time to go for the diner at Cangalho (G) and enjoy some Fado. We are late. And I start to feel unsure about the way to get there. Finally we arrive and we have a great evening there. Music was great, food was excelent and we got an extra discount of 30%. Today there is no mood for long conversations and extra wine. Basically people went to bed as soon as we arrived home.

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24th September 2008

10:00 - Some of us go for a walk in the Natural Park of Ria Formosa, near Faro. Natasha, Alexey, Daniel and Patricia. The lazy ones stay at home. We don't really have the time to properly explore the grounds of the Park, but still we have the chance of spoting some flamingos and to have a general introduction to the local landscape.

13:30 - We go East and than North. Our first stop is in Cacela Velha, a gorgeous small village, still keeping its old shape and atmosphere with great views and pictoresque houses. Some tourists usually wander around there but in general terms it's a virgin land, well out of the claws of mass tourism. We have our first group portrait.

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15:30 - Time for some stress, when Ivan's car gets behind, failing to leave a round about at the right road. The walkie-talkies lost connection, nobody seems to manage to obtain a phone connection. After a while we made it and we finally found the lost team, waiting in a gas station. Some time was lost, but it was funny after all.

16:40 - We stop near the bridge which marks the boundary between Algarve and Alentejo. There is a geocache to be found here. Some of the persons have fun, throwing stones into the water of the small river there. Some other just stay buy the cars. Cache found, success. We return to the cars and the trip goes on.

17:10 - We stop in the small village of Espirito Santo, an excellent experience for the guests. Probably no other foreigner ever steped here. We visit the church and people goes up to the bell tower. I found this place myself only two weeks ago, while looking for a geocache in the vicinities. Before we hit the road again, we try to drink coffee but the local cafe has its problems with the expresso machine... so Ivan will have to hold until Mértola. By now, his cafeine levels are so low that we have to transport him on a stretcher, as you can see here:

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17:50 - We arrive in Mértola. Finally the coffeee. Some lifes are saved. We seat for a while in a cool esplanade, before we go for the castle. Oh it's closed. No problema, I know where we can trespass with a little and easy climbing. We walk around, enjoying the views and the narrow pictoresque streets. It's becoming late. Before leaving this lovely village, we try another perspective, crossing the bridge over the Guadiana. And we have our second group portrait.

19:00 - Now we have to drive for a while before we reach the small town of Almodôvar, where we will be buying the food for diner. On the way, we watch a marvellous sunset and the sky becomes all purple. So... shopping time. Only a few go inside to save time. We are starving, tired but still excited with all these adventures.

20:30 - We arrive at the watermill. Everybody is really excited with the cozy place. And a small scorpion inside the house brings some extra adrenaline to the group. I'm occupied lighting up the fire for the grill. Soon we are drinking whine, both indoors and outdoors and the meat is ready. Delicious! Whine keeps flowing, people are happy. We light up fire in the fireplace for extra warm, but it's not really cold. Some of us go outside for a while, enjoying the silence and the small noises of the night. The day is almost over. But we keep chating in a wonderful atmosphere.

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25th September 2008

11:00 - After a long evening, a late breakfast is expected. There we were, enjoying the warm sun of the morning, chating for a hour or so. Just preparing ourselves to the journey ahead of us. It was time to clean the place and we finally departed, stoping in the nearby windmill for a short visit.

13:20 - Along the way we stoped twice: first, to closely observe the amazing propellers beeing installed in modern windmills, designed to generate electricity using the power of wind. Their size is impressive and everybody was excited, taking pictures and so. Then we paused in Malhão, a spot with incredible views and a local cafe which was handy for geting refreshments and some extra food. Ah! Almost forgot! We also stoped for observing the romand bridge of Tôr.

15:30 - Finally at home. I had serious work to do, and plus I still had to pack for two months in Prague. Ivan was kind enough to drive Pavel, Ruben and someone else to a nearby village, Santa Bárbara de Nexe, for ATM machine and post office. The remaining just stayed in the villa, checking eMails and trying the swimming-pool. It was a relaxing afternoon.

19:30 - Time to start cooking. I was about to prepare a Feijoada, portuguese meal based in beans, and Ruben was in his way for presenting us with duck rice. Well... the duck was a hard guy so it was a about 2 hours between one dish and the other. Which was just perfect for me as me and Ivan had to drive to Faro's airport to drop the cars. So it was great to return and have a warm meal and a proper portion of "sangria" to drink. During all this time people helped with the cleaning and the villa was left in pretty good conditions, just as requested to our guests. We went to sleep about midnight. There was another long day ahead of us.

26th September 2008

05:30 - Waking up! Early train, two shifts beeing driven to the railways station. Tickets were bought yesterday. It's a three hours trip. Some people sleep for a while, some other watch a movie in the computer.

10:00 - We arrive Lisbon, Entrecampos station. Ruben leave us in Campo Pequeno, the main bullfight arena of the city. Then we walk about 1 km to drop the backups at my mom's place. Breakfast time in a local cafe, while I go deposit a couple of checks in the bank. We take the metro then a ferry and we are in the south bank of the river. Nice stroll around. It's a gorgeous day. We enjoy the warm sun lying in the green grass. Returning to the ferry terminal we noticed we will have to wait about a hour for the next boat. So we go for food and refreshments. We meet two ladies from Macau and have an extended chat.

14:50 - We cross the river again, towards Belém. This time the ferry is nicer, beeing a car carrier boat. We can stay outside, enjoying the views in a proper way. We walk past Mosteiro dos Jerónimos. We take a tram, a modern one, to downtown.

16:30 - There is a long queue for the 28 tram. We let the first one go, as in theory it's only 10 minutes for the next one. But we wait and wait and probably we stayed there for half a hour. Finally we got nice seats in the next tram and we cross some old parts of Lisbon before we get out near the castle. Again, enjoying nice views over the old city - or at least a part of it. Oleksy and Pavel entertain theirselves annoying a homeless / junkie and vice versa. We think about visiting the castle but it's already late and it's a paid visit.

18:20 - We go for a drink and some food in a fine esplanade that I heard about. It was really cool. We stay there until sunset. The group goes for shopping im Vasco da Gama shopping center and I go home to spend some time with my mom. We meet later, in time to go for the airport.