Faro & Almancil
Because sometimes you just want to sit under the instrument of Jesus' death.
On Friday, we took a short drive (everything is a short drive in the Algarve) to Faro. Within central Faro is a preserved walled city with a cathedral, palace, and winding cobble streets. It was here we focused our main attention on our short visit.
After a lunch of ...you guessed it... sandwiches, we continued to the west of Faro to see this supposedly-famous tile encrusted church.
Church of São Lourenço of Almancil
Our fate dictated that the church was closed for lunch (or maybe for the day - I can't remember) so after all the hype and build up of this AMAZING tiled interior, we only got to see the relatively austere outside. The tile work we could see was still intricately beautiful of course.
From here we decided to look in on one of the beaches near to Albufeira, on the road from Almancil towards the coast. We drove through a rather monotonous semi-suburban neighborhood of holiday homes that were all shut down for the season. While I've seen pictures of those houses gleaming white in the summer sun with flowers and lush green gardens, they definitely didn't give off a welcoming vibe with all the metal shutters pulled down, the drab grey skies setting each tone the same against a dull brown/green background.
We got to the beach, though, and found it deserted and ruggedly beautiful.
In the summer, this place is packed with bright, colourful beach paraphernalia, along with hundreds of holiday-makers
For just a few moments, the sun came out and I got an idea of how lovely it would be to spend some sunny days on a beach such as this one. The germ of an idea about visiting Barbados was born...
The little family