Portugal is so green!

On Saturday, in all the rain, we said goodbye to Spain for a while and drove over the border into Portugal via a funny bridge. Yes, that means we are now in the Algarve region. But please don't think about surfing and the like, we ended up inland near the town of Silvester.

Some of you may know the imposing castle from Muslim rule, or the Roman bridge, which the sign says you are not allowed to enter, but which people are always standing on. The Algarve is not just about long sandy beaches, great waves and bizarre rock formations, there is more to it than that.

Since it is school holidays, we have avoided the beaches so far because when the sun is shining, they are really busy. We prefer to be more secluded and so we drove into the hinterland.

We were following the menhirs, which didn't end so well for Loki when he thought he should take a look at some beehives next to the path. All the persuasion didn't help, one of the guards actually stung him, it still itches and the poor guy keeps rubbing... The rest of the hike was very beautiful, hills, red earth and rocks and everything is so green! That was the first thing we noticed almost immediately after the border, here in Portugal they seem to have reforested the area or not all the oak trees are being felled for shipbuilding, like they did in Spain for the Armada. The area here is extremely colorful at the moment, there are more flowers everywhere, buds and oranges and lemons everywhere, which smell really intoxicating right now, they are blooming just like the avocado trees. Spring is noticeable here, but it has also rained a lot in the area in the last few weeks, which of course could have contributed to my impression.

Here, too, there is a lot of agriculture, monocultures, etc., that's just the way it is, here it is again like Valencia or Barcelona, olives and cork oaks can also be seen again and again.

I'm excited about the national parks, because the coast is perhaps not the best destination at the moment because of the current Easter holidays. A few days ago we were near Sagres, which I would also like to see, it was by the sea and relatively isolated. There's definitely a lot more hustle and bustle around the rock and stone formations.

The hike in the hinterland had the advantage that we had an insider tip for restaurants in the area. It was a simple restaurant with a menu de dia, but really good. Without stumbling across it, we probably wouldn't have ended up there.

The language here is funny because my app teaches me more Brazilian Portuguese, which is why I got some very amused looks today for a word that, according to the app, also means thank you in colloquial terms. The meaning here is different, however, so it's more amusing for the listeners, not bad, just funny.

Our host at Quinta Do Sol Poente, Nuno, is very helpful and speaks excellent English, even a few words of German, which is really helpful when I don't understand Portuguese. He has already recommended restaurants, hikes and given us some tips that we will implement in the next few days. He is very relaxed with the dogs, his philosophy is simple, the guests are part of the whole, he has a place in nature and anyone who appreciates the place is welcome. There are only a few campers, the place is currently almost too full, but everything is well distributed, you don't really see the others.

It was funny because when he showed us his little paradise so lovingly, lots of storks were circling above us, the nearby river made it possible. We had seen lots of storks on the electricity pylons around Algeciras, in the green north of Morocco, but they never circled like that. They usually sat in the marshy meadows and wetlands, but now we saw them like the vultures near Tarifa. It was funny because they keep clattering, something I've never seen in Germany before. It was lovely to see!

I'm looking forward to the next few days!