Touril - 2

Before I start today’s blog a photo of last night’s lovely sunset.

Not to be repeated tonight I am afraid as Touril suffered the equivalent of a sea-fret from about 7pm. Never mind it has been another glorious day of weather here in Southern Portugal.

Today we ventured inland exploring the range of hills that back onto both the Western Coast and the Algarve. These are of course the home of one of Portugal’s famous products, cork. Marion was researching this and tells me that one tree can produce up to 100,000 corks a year, sounds a lot to me. However we saw the inner trunks of trees lying in fields, presumably drying before the production process. Any help on how bottle corks are actually manufactures would be gratefully received.

We soon stopped for coffee in a small, remote roadside café. Again drinks are amazing value in Portugal, a coffee and mineral water was €2!

The road through the hills was impressive, suddenly we came upon a Roman bridge, and this was less impressive as it was neither a whole bridge, nor did it look particularly Roman.

It was near a railway station, so for the benefit of Laura I took a picture of a Portuguese train that just happened to be calling there.

We then passed through the small spa town of Monchique, which was beautifully situated in a quiet valley. From there the road rose over the hills to about 1,500 feet and it was possible to view across to the Algarve Coast. We were back at the hotel by 4pm so I took the opportunity for a long walk along the coast, managing about six miles. The walking is easy; if sandy as unlike the coast around Scarborough it does not ascend and descend much. Once again the views are spectacular in particular the little inlets formed in the cliffs. There are supposed to be stork’s nests on the cliff stacks, but I did not spot any – it maybe the wrong season. Great walking country.

Tonight we reprised the same restaurant as last night A Barca and had a spectacular simply cooked meal. Fish soup, sautéed prawns, grilled sole that we were presented with before cooking, and a dessert. The meat just fell of the sole. Together with half a bottle of wine, water and coffee this came to the princely sum of €66. For top quality ingredients simply cooked it could not be beaten. There was also great friendly service. One of those meals that you always remember.

So tomorrow we move on from the coast to the inland city of Evora, more from there.