We were off to the Algarve, approx 5.5 hours drive from Porto! As my biggest client had begun their Christmas holidays close of business on Wednesday 20th December, instead of moving at the weekend, I wouldn’t have work to do on the 21st, so that’s when we’d go.
The previous week I’d informed the landlord of the yellow house who wasn’t too happy to lose a months rental. However, with no contract in place, whilst I don’t like to let anyone down, our happiness was more important.
Once again we packed-up the car on a beautiful dry sunny day.
This time we had a couple of extra boxes as we’d purchased a battery charger & the halogen heater! Fully laden, we headed-up the lane, but where the earth ended at cobbles & the track became steep, the wheels skidded with no purchase. Rob revved & after a few tries, the car found enough grip to continue, but we pulled over on the flat to check the tyres were OK. They were.
However, when we set-off again, there was a horrid grinding noise from the front right of the car. This is a worrying intermittent sound, but we’ve no idea what’s causing it & it wouldn’t necessarily repeat if a mechanic took the car for a test-drive.
The Honda is a worry.
It’s almost 14 years old with 175,000 miles on the clock & will no-doubt, break down at some point. When we decided to travel, we considered selling it & buying another. We looked at left-hand drive vehicles & in particular camper vans, but although a romantic idea, not ideal with two dogs & a parrot! Rob also loves it & I agree, it’s a lovely comfortable big car. The deciding factor was funds, why change a car that is actually very reliable & use-up savings that we may well need? We’re just keeping some money on one side & will look at what’s available in Europe should we ever desperately need a replacement car.
Fortunately, by the time we hit the motorway the scraping had stopped so we relaxed into the journey. Portuguese motorways are in excellent condition & not busy (likely due to the tolls) so it was a pleasant, if slightly boring drive. We’d looked at other routes, but they’d take longer & we anticipated an evening arrival as it was.
I was delighted that it was warmer on each of our rest stops as we travelled further South. Bliss!
The Alentejo leg of the journey always seems the longest & it was dropping dark by this point – it was the 21st December & the shortest day. It was certainly the best part of the route to see the fantastic sunset to our right as we drove.
Following Google from the link in the Air B&B app, we approached Santa Barbara de Nexe past a brightly lit shopping mall – we really hoped this wasn’t in view from our house! I’d kept our host up-to-date as we were an hour later than anticipated & Joao was waiting when we arrived with a welcome pack of cheese, biscuits & wine!
Even better, he’d put electric radiators on in every room.
Once he’d settled us in to a lovely rustic house, a short distance off the road up a cobbled track, we returned to the small supermarket in Santa Barbara de Nexe 10 minutes down the road to buy something for tea. After living in rural areas of Spain & Portugal for a number of weeks, it was actually a surprise that the assistant spoke English straight-away!
It was too dark to see the surrounding area (so no shopping mall), but we felt a sense of olive groves close-by. Having visited the Algarve on holiday many times before, we felt welcome & immediately at home…