Ah! Young love! A chance to spend a blissful day together with the beloved! Perfect weather – abundant sun, blue skies, and a pristine beach sandwiched between towering sandy cliffs. A perfect Portugal day! And then the middle-aged American couple huffs onto one end of the beach.

I woke up today with my throat finally starting to feel somewhat better, but now my back and neck muscles were very sore. Coughing had become happily rare, but when it did happen, it hurt and was usually accompanied by hawking up something rather less than lovely. And my body was still tired, especially since I didn’t sleep well as I went through hot/cold cycles again. Not a great start to a touring day when I was in charge.

I ate a little breakfast and then went back to the room to rest. Mer got done with her much-better-deal breakfast and came back to the room, where she generously offered to let me rest some more since checkout wasn’t until noon. But it was a perfect-weather day, and the light only lasts until 5:30 this time of year, so I decided to gut things out and see how things fared.

The first stop of the day was at Castelo Beach, right outside of Albufeira to the west. The beach is actually a couple of beaches – a large one that is easily accessible, and a small one that requires some effort to get to due to having to scramble down rocks and sand and such. Of course I wanted to see the smaller beach, and we headed down that way after checking out the recently completed viewing platform at the top of the cliff separating the large beach from the smaller one. It took a couple of tries to find a path that led all the way down to the beach, but we made it. And that’s where we stumbled upon our young love birds who I’m sure were thrilled to see us coming. We sat in the shade of a cliff and watched the sea for a few minutes, and then we made our way back off the beach. Happily, we were replaced by a woman in her thirties who was by herself.

It took some small effort to get back up, including a couple of tricky patches, but we made it, and then we went down to the bigger beach, which was deserted. That may have had something to do with the smell – not overpowering, but a distinct rotting-plant smell, probably from the tons of organic plant material on the beach. Of the half-dozen Portuguese beaches we have been on, this was the only one with that issue. We didn’t linger.

We drove on west some more, to the Chapel of Nossa Senhora da Rocha (Our Lady of the Rock), a dramatically placed small chapel that sits on a narrow cliff between two beaches. I’ve come to the conclusion that all of southern Portugal is either cliff or beach. We sat at the end of the chapel enclosure, enjoying the view. As we were leaving the cliff, I saw a bar that had a kitty sitting in the doorway, so that seemed a sign. We went in, and they indeed had simple bar food, so we got lunch, and got to pet a friendly kitty.

From lunch, we walked down to the beach on the left, and found it was busy with about a dozen children playing. My main goal was the other beach, so that was fine, especially since to get to the other beach, you used a tunnel. That was fun. It turns out there was a stairway to the other beach too, but the tunnel was more satisfying.

The other beach was quieter, with about ten people spread out across the whole of it. Mer and I pulled up a slip of sand; I was tired and a little cold, so I figured sitting in the sun would help. After a bit, that seemed like work, so I lay down and pulled together a sand pillow for my head. I put my hat over my eyes, and the seagull cries got really distant for awhile. We did use the stairs to leave the beach.

The last stop of the touring day was to drive over to Marinha Beach, to the start of the Seven Hanging Valleys trail. It’s a trail that winds along the clifftops of the area, with wonderful views of sea stacks, sea arches, caves, cliffs, beaches, and the ocean. The trail wasn’t crowded, but we never had it to ourselves either, so it must be packed in the summer. We walked about one third of the way out before I decided with time’s and my water supply’s running out, we should head back. It was a beautiful hike. And, in keeping with our observation that this country is kitty-nuts, a program to help town cats had put up a little six-cat-bed kitty shelter with some food around. The kitties sunning themselves on the nearby picnic tables were appreciative.

We drove forty-five minutes to Lagos, where our hotel is located for tonight and tomorrow night. The hotel faces the ocean, but isn’t right on it. In this case, that’s good overall for the town since the beach is public and open for miles in either direction. It does mean no waves to sleep to tonight.

I was pretty tired at this point, so I took a thirty-minute nap while Mer walked down to the beach. We then headed the mile into town, walking along the remarkably good boardwalk that runs the entire length of the beach. We got to see the light changing as the sun went down, and then Mer realized we’d be walking back in the very un-lit dark of the boardwalk, so expressed a desire to go back for the car so we could drive home after dark. We did that, and parked near the marina and train station. We grabbed supper at an Italian restaurant, and then walked along the harbor/river area to the old town to go get some ice cream. Hey, it’s Thanksgiving back home, so we had to do some splurge eating.

I’m thankful that the joy of middle-age love keeps on going for us, and that even when I’m not at my loveliest (sick, sweating from the sun, and wearing a very unsexy sun hat), Meredith still prefers to travel with me over all others.