Uncategorized Archives - Sandals N Socks

Estepona

Grant Williams — Tue, 11 Dec 2018 09:05:24 +0000

Parking in Estepona is at the marina, great spot, even did some more fishing. The town itself is realy nice, a long promenade lined with restaurants, cafes and bars. There’s a great older part with the usual narrow streets that lead to squares with more cafes, all very relaxing.

One very noticeable thing is the street art, well they’re more like deliberate murals, I can only imagine the town has paid to have these done, and in fact have a look at www.andalucia.com where you’ll see a list of them all, their locations and what it’s all about.

And some othere I found on the way:

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Tarifa

Grant Williams — Tue, 11 Dec 2018 08:30:56 +0000

After my city break in Cadiz I was in the need of a bit of beach time, I’d seen a place called Bolonia beach so off I went. The drive was great, nice roads that ended in a drive over a small mountain and dropping down into the village of Bolonia.

I can imagine when there’s some wind or waves this would be a surfer of kite paradise, parking is as close to being on the beach as you can get and the beach is fantastic, clean golden sand.

Just off the sand there’s a Roman archaeological site with buildings, roads and squares and the pis de resistance, an amphitheater, not quite good as Side in Turkey, but certainly a fantastic site.

On the headland is the quarry where the Romans got the stone to build their town.

After a couple of days exploring in Bolonia I moved a couple of miles along the coast to another great beach, again parking right on the beach. Spent a couple of days here, even did some fishing! There was even some beach art.

Tarifa town itself was quite busy, good place to do shopping, laundry, empty the necessary and get some water, all the above done I carried on to Estepona.

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Cadiz

Grant Williams — Mon, 03 Dec 2018 17:47:20 +0000

On the way to Cadiz I had a rest break at Praia do Barril, great little place, a vast nature reserve, fantastic beach and home to the ‘Anchor Graveyard’

Lunch and a walk and it was onward to Cadiz.

Cadiz is somewhere I think most people have heard of, I always remember it cropping up in old movies with pirates or adventurers, but I didn’t really know where it was, well not when I was younger. Parking was on the mainland side of the, rather impressive, bridge linking Cadiz with the rest of Spain, and believe it or not you can walk over the bridge: seemed silly not to.

The bridge is 3km long and the walk is along the service road, like having a two lane road all to yourself, I only saw 2 bikes.

Cadiz has a modern shopping area, a very large port and a fantastic old town. Apparently it’s the oldest inhabited city in europe and the place just drips history. The narrow winding streets open out into squares and public spaces, and little shops fronts and street vendors are everywhere.

The market hall.

In the middle of the old town is the public market building which was full of life. I was there on a Sunday, so not sure if it’s always so busy, I should imagine so, The market has wine merchants selling wine obviously, bars, cafes and deli counters, what seemed to be happening was one person went off and got wine or beer or perhaps coffee, another went along the deli counters getting olives, cheese or cured meats, they then got together at a table and that was lunch sorted, such a fantastic atmosphere.

The ‘seaward’ side of the city has a great promenade and beaches. A real must visit place.
The view from my parking spot

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Vila Real de Santo Antonio

Grant Williams — Mon, 03 Dec 2018 17:03:58 +0000

Albufeira, I’d certainly heard of it but wasn’t expecting it to be so …… bar city!

It’s actually not quite as bad as it first appears, it’s clean and well laid out, plenty of busses etc and it’s quite cheap: Large beer 2 euro, if that’s what floats your boat

There are a couple of beaches and a nice old town, so certainly worth a visit.

Next along the coast was Vila Real de Santo Antonio, a quite cool little city on the coast. It was very Spanish and very busy, street cafes packed with people and the whole place had a great buzz.

Next, it’s Cadiz

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Lagos to Sagres

Grant Williams — Mon, 03 Dec 2018 16:46:04 +0000

After having visited the top of the world: well it seemed like it driving there: I zoomed back to the coast, it was getting late so I headed for a paid for parking place in Lagos, only 3 euro but I knew there’d be space. Parking is at a sports stadium with showers and laundry, so a good choice. Lagos itself is a great place to visit, plenty of shops, a marina and public spaces. It’s quite a touristy town, which means plenty of restaurants etc and boat trips taking you along the coast, and everywhere you look around here there’s a stork sitting on a nest!

After a night of r&r I pushed on further West along the coast, aiming for Sagres, not sure what I was going to find but I’d read it was an area worth visiting, turns out it was everything I’d hoped for and more.

Rugged coastline, sandy beaches, surfers everywhere, a lighthouse and an old fort, so plenty to see and do, in fact I spent 2 nights here, really I just wanted to see another sunset like this one.

An old library van from …. Wales

Click here for a video of the blow-hole

This weird looking thing is a kind of spiral building sitting on top of a blow-hole that leads down to the sea, and every time a wave comes the sound is amplified, you can go and stand on the grate above the hole, it was a calm day when I visited and I can only imagine what it’d be like on a rough day!

Look closely and you can see 2 blokes fishing from the rock face, and this must be called boot rock, or shoe island!

The difference between street art and graffiti, some idiot graffitied on this street art

A catch these fishermen are about 100ft up on top of a cliff, there were loads of them all along the coast, one slip and they would have been fish food themselves. Oh the wave, they were making rainbows as they broke.

Some fishing spots were a bit safer.

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Top of the world

Grant Williams — Tue, 27 Nov 2018 10:04:46 +0000

The rain had passed over and it looked like it was going to be a nice day. I met John, he has the same make mh as me, the only other one I’d seen, so I went over to say hello. While chatting I mention one of my gas bottles was empty so John pointed me in the direction of the nearest garage where I could fill up, so off I set, not far and on the route I was planning.

After the fill stop the next break was in Porto Covo, a very nice little place on the coast between Sines and Vila Nova, there is an aire here but it was only early so pushed on a bit to Vila Nova.

After trying a couple of parking places I finally found a great spot across the river from the main town, right on the beach. Another night of heavy rain gave way to a glorious sunrise and after being cooped up for days and driving so much a stroll was in order.

I followed the cliff path south for a couple of hours, hidden cove often hidden cove, dramatic cliffs and rocky outcrops, all of which you could only really get to by boat, but it was certainly worth the effort. I did manage to get down to one cove but the tide was rushing in so I couldn’t stay long.

Walk over and I was back at the van before 2 so though a couple of hours driving would get me to the Algarve and hopefully some better weather. Looking at the route I saw it was quite close to Alto da Foia, an observatory overlooking the Algarve from an altitude of 882m, so I thought why not, the book said a casual country drive.

FMR they must have taken a different road from the white knuckle ride I took, it was something like an extreme driving tv show, but I suppose I can now say I went there!

I was very windy, cold and grey when I reached the top so after some quick pics I set off back down, aiming for Lagos on the west coast, didn’t take long and by 5:30 I was parked up having some dinner, I’ll explore tomorrow.

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Comporta and all points West

Grant Williams — Tue, 27 Nov 2018 09:29:46 +0000

Leaving the great beach at Santa Cruz I headed west along the coast, no real aim but that night I thought I might park in Comporta, which is just south of Lisboa, and on the way I intended to visit Cabo Roca, the most westerly point on mainland europe.

The coastal road, passing through a world surfing reserve:

As you can imagine, driving to a remote lighthouse on the western coast of portugal took me along some quite narrow winding roads, but when I saw the size of the coaches ferrying tourists to the lighthouse I wasn’t worried.

Having visited Cabo Fisterre, the most westerly point in Spain, I had an idea of what to expect, and to be honest it was very similar, certainly just as windy What can I say about it? It’s a lighthouse on the edge of europe, still worth a visit so I can say I’ve been.

Next was getting through Lisboa, I had intended to stop and visit but the forecast was for heavy rain so thought I’d save it for another day. As it turned out it was a breeze getting through, the motorway just cuts through the city and crosses the Tagus via the Ponte 25 de Abril, It’s a 2km long bridge, with three narrow lanes in each direction, certainly an experience.

Next stop: Sesimbra castle, and although there was overnight parking, again due to the impending rain I visited the castle and pressed on.

The castle itself was really good, well maintained, fantastic views. It dates back to 1201 and was a very important castle in it’s day bringing law and order to the area.

So a bit more driving and I was at Comporta, the base for the night, fantastic roads through nature reserves, scenery to die for, so different to the sprawl that was Lisboa.

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Aviero street art

Grant Williams — Fri, 23 Nov 2018 14:56:38 +0000

There was quite a bit here, either one prolific artist or lots of them:

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Coimbra

Grant Williams — Fri, 23 Nov 2018 09:44:18 +0000

The next day started with a beautiful sunrise on the beach at Ilhavo, can’t believe how calm it looked after the storm in the night, in fact there has been a storm passing over for days with bouts of glorious sunshine mixed with some horrendous rain with thunder and lightning.

After a bit of a walk I set off for Coimbra, heard it was a nice place

The parking was just over the river from the main city which was once the capital of Portugal, now its a real tourist mecca and wondering around you can see why. Walking up through the medieval old town brings you to the top of the hill on which the town’s built, right up to the universities, some grand buildings and loads of statues, unfortunately it started to rain, and I mean rain, the streets turned to rivers and every doorway was packed with people trying to shelter, I just wandered back down the hill while the streets were empty!

University buildings:

Narrow streets:

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Aveiro

Grant Williams — Fri, 23 Nov 2018 09:27:11 +0000

Came across Aveiro a bit by accident, I was looking for somewhere to overnight and this looked interesting, one bit was true, the interesting bit. The place is full of colour and life, the buildings are a great mix of old and new but there are loads of art nouveau examples, I’ll just let you look at some pictures.

There was some good street art which I’ve put on the street art page.

The parking I thought may be noisy, it was close to a main road and railway line and as it isn’t the only option in the area, I moved on, back to a beach close to Ilhavo.

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