Algarve, Day 10 - rain and tiles

 It drizzled or rained for most of the morning. Aimee swam at 7am and I booked the pool at 2pm. What a luxury it is to have the whole pool to yourself. It is nicely warm, large enough to do lengths and with a shallower area for exercises or yoga in the water or you can simply float with no one else splashing around. Very "zen".

Sue noted that we have been doing a lot of reading and wondered if we had any books to recommend. We have been borrowing from the hotels bookshelves and most of them are "beach reads". These are what is in the apartment today.

We split the huge meringue, pure sugar. This is the chocolate one; the little round bits were like rice crispies covered in chocolate and the inside was chocolate fudge.

During a period of light drizzle we popped across to the supermarket and along with shrimp, cheese, pickled onions, bananas, milk and yogurt we tried some herbed potato chips.

When I got back from swimming it seemed as if the rain was finished and we set out for a walk, with rain coats, just in case.

Blue sky and sun at times

dark clouds and dim light at others

Behind the touristy "promenade".

We climbed up to the lookout

and spotted a white bird

in the rock pools, below.

A Little Egret, fishing.

He looked like he had stepped in a pool of yellow paint.

Heather asked about the Portuguese tiles. They don't seem as prevalent here but her query made me look for some. This restaurant had different patterns on the various tables and benches (yes they did also have cushions too)

and paintings on the walls of some of their menu items.

On steps, walls

and balconies.

But most often

paintings

at entrances

or on walls.

We walked a different way up from the beach

and found the tower that this area is named after.

It was built during the reign of King João III.

This tower's main function was to guard the coast, protecting the populations of corsairs who navigated these waters, mainly from North African pirates who kidnapped people and then sold them as slaves. Not much info, translated from Portuguese, in Wikipedia

and not much to look at either.

We had gone looking for the Thai restaurant we had seen before but it was closed so ended up at one with a Menu Complet. We both chose from the 9 Euro menu. Aimee had Pork Stroganof and I had Liver in Garlic and Onions. Came with the bread and olives and a litre of wine between us. Oh Boy!

And Creme Brulee for dessert. It was a 2 hour meal in a busy place with English, German and Portuguese conversations floating around us. Good job we had a walk home to clear our heads (a bit)