Two and a half weeks ago, I ran my twentieth marathon. It was a solid race, but even after all of these years of my running the marathon, it’s still a physically difficult thing to do. At some point late in the race, you just have to force yourself to put one foot in front of the other.

I bring this up for two reasons. One, I should be in beastly shape; I just ran a marathon. And two, sometimes even when touring, you just have to force yourself to put one foot in front of the other.

I woke up after a good nine hours of sleep, but still felt pretty lousy. I took a really long and hot shower to try to loosen my back and lungs, and then I stuck to yogurt and cereal for breakfast. It seemed easiest to swallow.

After breakfast, we headed back into town in Tavira. I wanted to go see the garden that now forms a park in the ruins of the old castle. It had been closed last night by the time we got there, but it looked really cool from what I could see through the bars. Since I had no time constraints for today, I decided to make room for the castle.

It was well worth it. The garden is cute and had many things still blooming, and the castle still had two walls and three towers you could climb on and in. The views were good, although you couldn’t really see the sea because it was too far away from the old town. We explored the garden, and went back to the hotel to check out; the entire outing took about an hour.

On to the next set of fun things to do! We headed west toward the town of Albufeira. Along the way, our GPS took us down eighteen thousand little roads, but eventually got us to the Pine Cliffs section of the miles-long Falésia Beach. I’m not much of a sit-on-the-beach kind of guy, but if you add in large sand cliffs topped by pines, miles of uncrowded beach to walk, and a perfect weather day, then I’m in. It was even warm enough for Mer to take off her shoes and walk in the edge of the surf. Great day.

Pine Cliffs didn’t disappoint. The cliffs were made up of red and white sand and had been weathered into all kinds of interesting shapes and canyons. We checked out the view from the top (after I warned Meredith that she probably shouldn’t go right up to the edge of the sand cliff). From there, we made our way down to the beach, where we walked east for almost an hour. And here was the first one-foot-in-front-of-the-other moment of the day. I was fine walking, but it was a very slow and deliberate pace. And if there was elevation, like when we went back to the car, it was all I could do to put my head down and just trudge up the slope. I told Meredith it was a bit of my “old man” preview, like the day after I had food poisoning last summer in Riga. Slow and steady don’t win you the tourism race, but they do keep you in the game.

We headed back to the car after a detour up and through a sand canyon that led to a private hotel entrance, so we went back down to the beach and back up to the car. That was a bit tough. We found a little Italian cafe where we got lunch nearby, and then went into Albufeira to check in to our hotel.

Meredith loves a good bargain. In our hotel last night, she saved several euros by getting a room with a window that had no view – it just looked out on a five-by-five mini courtyard that let light into the building interior.

I am not that way. While I do not check us into extravagant hotels, if I can find, say, a beachfront resort hotel for ninety-six dollars, I’m going to do that, and pony up the extra to get a room facing the ocean.

That turned out to be a good thing. By the time we got checked in, I was at the end of my tourism rope. I told Meredith I needed a nap, and we left the balcony door open to the ocean. I fell asleep almost immediately to the sounds of the waves. Mer took advantage of the time by strolling along the beach twenty minutes into town, and then coming back and doing some more beach strolling.

The rest helped, although I still was lacking any real vigor. When we set out again around 5:00, we went along the beach into town at a thoughtful shuffle. I kept us on the beach until we got to the far end of the town beach so we could climb some pretty white stairs to the top of the cliffs that part of the town is built on. I also wanted to check out the elevator/viewing platform next to the stairs. The platform wasn’t graceful, coming from the “Ooooo, concrete!” age of architecture, but the views were satisfying.

We then plunged into the back alleys of the town, trying to find the old town. After thirty or forty minutes of semi-directed phone map wandering, we thought we found the edge of the old town, where we had supper on the patio of an Italian restaurant that had heaters and blankets to keep us warm.

After supper, we walked along the now-deserted beach to the hotel. We still have the doors to the room open to the ocean, and that is a little energizing, at any rate. Here’s to the possibility of a long sleep tonight and to feeling better as a result. One step at a time, I guess.