We boarded the bus for the relatively short bus ride into Faro, the capital of the Algarve in southern Portugal. This will be a relatively short "stop over" to get a glimpse of what the place is all about. Faro is only a very small town, although having said that it is a little bigger than what it seems.
This is because the town has many streets that are set asid for pedestrian access only. The streets are all interconnected so there is a relatively large area with no access to cars. Nothing new here in that Seville, Barvelona, and the other European cities we visited last time all have the same feature. What makes Faro a little different, to me, at least is that these pedestrianised streets have all been paved over in a similar manner so they more or less look the same to me! This is not a problem because the streets are short and it is so small you can't get lost - not for long anyway.
No, Faro is not a part of Afghanistan. When we got here we found that the army, navy, and air force had got here before us. They are on a recruitment drive. I think they may be taking the "Private Benjamin" approach with posters boasting of "adventure". Many of the armed forces personnel seem eager to mingle with any friendly female natives and could be seen around town having coffees and long chats. At least one of the officers is staying in a room on our floor - a big guy (andd I don't mean overweight) who took up more than his fair share of the lift!
If you like observing planes at close quarters then you'll love Faro! I must see if I can get a better picture to illustrate my point but it's not an easy thing to capture the feel of how close the planes come here. The airport is just on the other side of the river, and the flight path really does go over the town. The town is a lot closer to the runway than Torremolinos was to Malaga airport (refer earlier blog) so the planes are really low - "scraping the rooftops" as it were. I'm told you get used to it....
The river (the Ria Formosa) is part of a large wetlands area that is a national park. If the weather holds tomorrow we are planning to take a boat trip through the wetlands and to a Fraser island style sand dune called Ilha Deserta, or "desert island". It's funny that they call it a desert island when it cimes complete with kiosk and restaurant! The island is the southernmost part of Portugal, Cape Santa Maria - what else would you expect a cape to be called around here?
More tomorrow.
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