The Algarve is an area of Portugal rightly famed for its coastline. The simplest of online searches will provide images of pristine sands swept by dazzlingly blue seas. And that’s all well and good if you hanker for the kind of thing. But my son, Joe, was coming to stay for a week, and he loathes getting hot, or wet, or sandy. So we hire car, and set out to show him what else this region has to offer.

The week gets off to a good start when, on our way to pick him up at the airport, we find an old book. It’s in a cardboard box next to some bins by the side of the road, and there’s a yellowed letter tucked inside. ‘Dear Harriet!’ it reads, ‘I am busy preparing myself for my examination in philosophy, and now I want to work at Master’s thesis.’ There is talk of a mutual friend, and that she’s including this book on Moscow in the package to, ‘help you to get to know much more about our capital.’ She signs off with, ‘Yours, Ada’. The book is from the fifties, and the hand-coloured pics are nothing short of brilliant.

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Loule

We hear there’s a chocolate festival at one of our local towns. Now I don’t know how you feel, but the word ‘festival’ conjures up quite a show for me. Add the word ‘chocolate’, and you can colour me happy. But in Portugal, it seems, it can apply to a lot less than I was imagining.

In Loule it comprises the small middle section of the local market being given over to the sale of chocolate in various forms. I buy a jar of homemade spread with orange peel in, and take a turn around the rest of the market. I’m delighted to see Sir Cliff Richard practically ordering me to buy more wine (although encouragement is not generally necessary). It helps to make up for the less than festive festival.

Wandering around town we almost miss the beautifully tiled Conceicao Chapel…

…partly because the outside is very unprepossessing, but mostly because I am heavily distracted by things like this.

We stop for lunch at Cafe Q, a family-run business set up by an African emigre called Filomena. The walls and menu are decorated with photos of her childhood in the African bush. As my dad was from Rhodesia, my own childhood memories contain similar photos from the family scrapbook. I feel very at home.

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Tavira

The next day we head for the coast: Joe may not like the beach but, as he’s come all the way to Portugal, we figure he should sodding well see some coastline. We take advantage of the sunshine and visit Tavira, a small, coastal town on the River Gilao. It boasts the remains of a castle tucked into the middle of the town, and several pretty, white-washed churches.

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As usual, the insides of the buildings outdo the exteriors, even though most had to be re-built after the earthquake of 1755. One of them has lovely, old, carved panelling, and the tombs of seven knights.

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Another has a trompe l’oeil painted balcony, and, amidst the splendour of the azelujo, a panel of tiles that have been stuck back onto the wall by someone who was very bad at jigsaws.

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On the way out of town we swing by Barril Beach, which houses the graveyard of anchors that Carlos told us about the last time we were here (read more). You either have a very long walk to it, or take a small shuttle train. Thinking we can see it over the next sand dune, we stupidly choose to walk.

Eventually we find the anchors, which are fenced off for safety reasons. They are actually quite easy to miss, sandwiched, as they are, between a long expanse of perfect beach and the fishermen’s huts that are now a cafe. They look sad and I try to summon up a similar feeling for the loss of livelihood that they represent.

Estoi

To round off Joe’s trip, we take him for coffee at the Pink Palace – a hotel in nearby Estoi. The terrace where we have our drinks has panoramic views, that stretch from mountains on both sides, to the Ria Formosa lagoon in the distance.

It was built in the early nineteenth century, but became a ruin when the family that owned it died out. A wealthy chap, called Jose Francisco Da Silva snapped it up a century later, and restored it to its former glory.

He became the viscount of Estoi, and there are two schools of thought as to how he achieved this. The official one is that he was awarded the title for rescuing the ruin and bringing it back to life, which is plausible, if a little over-generous.

The alternative version is that he used the palace (with all its secluded little summer houses and gazebos) as a place for his rich, married, mates to get jiggy with other women. For which they consequently said, ‘thanks, Frankie, have a peerage’.

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And the rather fruity decoration in some of these buildings would seem to bear this out: there’s an abundance of lascivious nymphs and less than coy looking cherubs. In the grotto is the obligatory naked statue of the three graces, flanked by Venus and Diana. Venus has had her va-jay-jay pencilled in, and no-one has bothered to clean it off – perhaps in deference to the original use of the building.

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Moncarapacho

Back at our home village, Steve picks me a bunch of wild flowers for Valentine’s Day, much to the disgust of the other husbands on site. It is felt that he is letting the side down by these expressions of romantic foolishness. Included in the bunch is a large, yellow, Angel’s Trumpet Flower, still in bud. That evening we stick the heating on, and it gradually opens during the course of an hour.

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During the night, Joe knocks on our bedroom door. ‘I think you’ve got a rodent,’ he says, and tells Steve there are gnawing sounds coming from somewhere in, or under, the bathroom. Steve goes to investigate, and I go back to sleep. The next day, I tell Brenda that my flower has opened.

‘You didn’t smell it, did you?’

‘Er, yes,’ I say, ‘why?’

‘They’re highly hallucinogenic,’ she says.

‘No, it’s fine, I left it in Joe’s room all night.’

At this point I begin to wonder about the reality of the rodent. I innocently ask Joe if he’s had any weird dreams, and then I throw away the flower.

On his last evening, we take Joe out to one of our favourite restaurants for a meal with The Intrepids. He only wants something light to eat, and we look for a simple fish dish on the menu. We are both a little concerned when we come across sole with bananas, but he decides to take a chance on it. Sole is a nice, delicate fish, we reason, and the banana bit is probably a couple of slices of fried plantain on the side.

Well, no. Not even close.

As we all tuck into slow-cooked lamb, and sizzling giant prawn skewers, Joe’s plate arrives heaped with a white, glutinous, blob. If the King of the Bananas had just thrown up onto your plate, this is what it would look like. Basically, they’ve boiled (boiled!) the fish and fruit together, God alone knows why. Everything tastes of gluey, rancid banana. Poor Joe. He is so put off that he can’t bring himself to order anything else. We all donate bits of our own food, and he has a very nice pudding. But still….poor Joe.

Next time: we say farewell to the Algarve, which just happens to throw a couple of carnivals to see us off. Thanks for reading. Ciao xx

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