Portugal and Spain

We crossed the Strait of Gibraltar by ferry from Tangier to Algeciras, Spain. This was a significant moment for us as it marked the arrival to our fifth and final continent of our trip. We picked up our rental car from the train station and made our way towards Portugal to meet up with our friends the Franks (Homer, Kerrie, Emerson (12), and Emmett (9)). We rented an AirBnB in a little town called Carvoiero for five nights. As we drove across the bridge into southern Portugal, I thought to myself, its not often you can be in two continents and three countries all in the same day without any flights.

We arrived to our AirBnB without any hitches at about 7 pm and got settled in. Unfortunately, the Franks had some bad luck with their flights. Their Toronto flight was delayed for de-icing which caused them to miss their connection from London to Lisbon. They were told that they could get on the next flight at 2:30 pm, however as that time approached, they were told the flight was full. They waited for another flight at 6:00 pm, but that didn’t work out either, so they ended up having to stay overnight at an airport hotel. The next day they caught their flight to Lisbon and then picked up their car to drive down to the Algarve and finally arrived at 9 pm that evening – about 48 hours after they had left Toronto!

The Algarve

We were very pleased with our accommodation in Carvoiero. After having spent many nights with the four of us crammed into small hotel rooms, we were now in a large comfortable house. Each family had a floor to themselves complete with large rooms with ensuites and a living room. It was a very nice layout. On the deck there was a pool, and we would end up spending a lot of time out there, swimming, barbequing, and enjoying the views of the sunset over the Algarve. (Algarve: “Al” + “Garve” means “The Cave” in Arabic and describes the long coastline with a thick layer of limestone riddled with caves.)

We spent the first full day just getting settled in and the kids were so happy to see each other that they would spend hours playing together. Unfortunately, both Meli and I picked up a stomach bug (Liam had been sick at the end of our time in Morocco) and so we were feeling off for the next few days, so we were happy just to take it easy. Mac would get the same bug a few days later, but fortunately for the Franks it was a “Weir” bug since the Franks didn’t have any issues.

The following day we did a hike along a boardwalk which had staircases leading down to some really cool rock features. The kids entertained themselves by trying to run away from some of the big waves that crashed against the rocks. Over the coming days they would prove to have an affinity to water as they would almost inevitably end up soaking wet. The fact that the water was somewhere in the mid 60’s didn’t seem to bother them!

We cooked most of our meals at home with the exception of a few outings for lunch. Since neither Meli nor I had much of a appetite we offered to watch the kids while Homer and Kerrie did a date night. They had a nice dinner at an Indian food place and then ended up at the local Irish Pub which was a five minute walk from our place just down the hill. I had swung by the Pub on the very first night to see if they had any ice (all the markets were closed) and they were very happy to oblige. I promised I would be back in the coming days to repay them with my patronage. Kerrie and Homer ended up tying one on and met a couple of Irish fellows and played darts with them late into the night. The following night I was feeling a little bit better, and I suggested to Homer that perhaps we could have a wander down to the bar to check it out. Sure enough, JP and Richard (the Irish guys) were right there. It was their last night and they were happy to have us sit with them. We carried on for several hours and played lots of darts and learned all about the Irish and the English and their differences. It was a lot of fun.

The next day we drove to Benagil Beach. We were hoping to book a boat tour to check out some of the caves from the water, however being the weekend, it was fully booked. We were happy to spend the afternoon on the beach while the kids played in the water for hours on end.

On our last full day in Portugal, we drove to a beach (Praia de Bordeiro) on the Atlantic coast. As we pulled up it started spitting and it was windy, cold, and miserable (ironically our only bad bit of weather). We walked along the boardwalk and down to the beach, and sure enough, within about 30 minutes, the sun popped out and it turned out to be a lovely day. I have been to a lot of beaches in my life but this one had to take the cake. It seemed to go on forever and was very flat and wide and surrounded by dunes. There was also this very cool sandstone rock formation right in the middle of the beach. We did a long walk up the beach and then afterwards made our way into town to grab lunch. There were very few options, but we lucked out with our choice. There were quite a few other hikers there enjoying a beer in the sun and eating on the patio. After a delicious meal, we headed back to our place.

The next morning, we got packed up and made our way to Spain.

Costa del Sol

En route to Costa del Sol, we stopped in Seville to grab lunch and do a quick tour. We only had a couple of hours, so we decided to do the City Tour bus. The tour was about 1.5 hours and took us all around the city to check out all the main landmarks. While these tours give some broad information about the city, I don’t find them overly enjoyable, but I suppose they are the best way to see a city in a very short period of time.

We arrived at our accommodation in Mijas, a small town 30 minutes west of Malaga. It was much more modern looking and had a good layout, especially the outside with a large area for the kids to run around and play soccer. Although the place was modern, it had several quirky/poorly thought-out design decisions that we had a good laugh at (e.g., the staircase looked cool, but would flex and make noise when you walked on it due to fundamental engineering flaws).

The first full day we went for a walk along the boardwalk. There was a boardwalk extending in both directions for as far as we could see (Homer and I did separate jogs in both directions on different days and never found the end). We headed toward one of the better beaches in the area since many of the beaches nearby were very rocky. We found a large stretch of beach where we ended up camping out for the day. We rented a few day beds from one of the restaurants and spent the better part of the afternoon relaxing and had a nice fish lunch.

One of my bucket list items had been to hike the Camino del Rey. This is a 9 km hike through a gorge with a very small pathway attached to the side of a sheer cliff face. We followed the google maps to arrive at Camino del Rey and ended up on a dirt road with several cars parked on it. There was absolutely no signage anywhere, so we asked some people and they indicated that we had to park there and walk for about 15 minutes along a closed off road. We got to the starting point and there were lots of people there, so that was a good sign. We were grouped up with about 25 other people and our guide and started off. After spending about 10 minutes making sure the microphone and audio worked (which it did), we set out down the trail. Our guide, who had pretty terrible English, decided that the microphone wasn’t useful (although it was working fine). She blabbed on for a little bit with some of the people at the back of the group expressing frustration that they could not hear her. Kerrie went up to her and asked if we could just leave the tour and continue on our own. She seemed a bit offended but obliged. We continued on by ourselves, and were followed by several others who abandoned the group as well. This tour suddenly got a lot better. We walked through the gorge with breathtaking views. Incredible large rock masses jutted out vertically several hundred metres in the air. A lot of very cool geology. As we walked along the wooden platform, we could see the old platform that was in place just below the new one. The old platform was about two feet wide and had holes and sections missing. There had been several deaths in the past leading to the construction of the much safer new pathway. At the very end of the trail, there was a suspension bridge. I started to walk across it with my phone in one hand to take a video and within seconds I turned back. There was quite a bit of wind and it was terrifyingly high so I need to hold on with both hands! Despite the shitty signage and useless tour guides this is a must do activity if you find yourself in southern Spain!

The following day we woke up at a good hour and made our way to Gibraltar. I didn’t know this at the time, but it is still under British rule and a British Overseas Territory. As such, we needed our passports to enter. We were aware of this prior to leaving, but unfortunately, as we were just passed halfway there, the Franks realized that they had accidently left them on the bed on the way out. We decided that we would split up. We would carry on to Gibraltar and the Franks would spend the day in Marbella.

Gibraltar was very cool. We circumnavigated our way around and through the big rock of Gibraltar and drove along the many narrow cobblestone streets in search of a parking spot to grab lunch. We settled on a nice English pub (there were no shortage of these!) before we made our way to the top of the rock. We drove to the top and were stopped by a guard who told us that we either had to hire a taxi or a tour guide to continue to the top. This didn’t appeal to us since we had our own car and we decided to head to the bottom again and take the cable car up. The cable car ride traversed up the steep rock and was made a little scarier only by the fact that the thing looked like it was 70 years old. At the top we were greeted by the local Macaque monkeys (we can’t seem to escape these buggers!). Fortunately they were very well behaved and left us alone. The views from the top were incredible. We walked around a little bit and then made our way back down and back to Mijas.

On the last full day, the Franks woke up early to check out Gibraltar. We stayed back and took advantage of some down time to take care of some much-needed planning for upcoming travel.

On our last day, we did a mad rush to get the place cleaned up and in order before we made our separate ways with the Franks. We had such a fun time with the Franks, and the boys were so glad to spend time with their good friends again.

Barcelona

We took a train from Malaga to Barcelona and arrived at our apartment in the evening. With only two full days in Barcelona, we had much to see in very little time. We spent the first day walking around the Gothic quarter and visited the Cathedral of Barcelona. This was one impressive building. We continued touring La Rambla, a well-known walking area, where we grabbed lunch in one of the local markets. Barcelona must be one of the coolest cities. Everywhere you go, there are beautiful old buildings and so much culture. I especially liked the random art installations found throughout the city. In the evening we visited a pub called the Oveja Negra (Black Sheep). I recalled going there with my friend Will when we were 18. The place was the exact same, except I felt much older. We drank beer, ate tapas, and played several games of foosball.

In the morning, we boarded the metro to head to the famous La Sagrada Familia church. This is a church that has been in construction since 1882. At 140 years, this constitutes one of the world’s longest continuous periods of construction for a project, second only to the Eglinton Subway line in Toronto.

As we exited the metro, Liam turned around to look at the church and expressed it perfectly when he said “How?!”. My feelings exactly. How on earth did they build this? The exterior façade was absolutely as beautiful as I remembered seeing when I was 18. There was a considerable advance in construction in the past 24 years since I had last seen it. I was too broke to pay for entrance fees when I was 18, so this was the first time seeing the interior (now I am only slightly less broke). The interior was equally incredible. Huge pillars that support the roof are designed like trees with branches spreading out towards the ceiling. The various pillars comprise different material types including granite, basalt, and limestone, depending on the load requirements. The lead architect, Antonio Gaudi, used a wonderful combination of art, style, math, and physics in the design and construction of the building. Every detail had a purpose. The last part of our tour consisted of going to the top of the Passion Tower – one of the main towers of the church – to take in the views of Barcelona from high up.

We finished the day up by visiting Park Guell. This park was also designed by Antonio Gaudi. I remember visiting the park and being amazed when I was 18. This time it was still amazing, but it was absolutely jammed with tourists and now they were charging an entrance fee.

We had an incredible time in Portugal and Spain. This time of year can be hit and miss with the weather but we were incredibly lucky to have sunny 20 degree weather most of the time. Special thanks to the Franks for making the journey out to visit us – we had a blast!!

Next stop - Italy!