The magical town of Zahara...in the rain!

Not the greatest weather yesterday, but there's too much to see in this area so we're not going to waste any of it sitting inside waiting for blue skies that may or may not come.

So yesterday, we drove over to the mountainside town of Zahara de la Sierra to do some exploring, and despite the weather we are really glad that we did!

Spain Never a Dull Moment on your Trip!

Discover the most enchanting Spanish cruises for their gentle pace and tropical year-round weather. Taking a river cruise is a great way to get a feel for the natural beauty and rich culture of Spain, amidst the unique chance to discover Andalusia. Seville from a different, privileged perspective on board, river cruising along the River Guadalquivir. Also, enjoy the River Guadiana, Spanish-Portuguese border on the coastal bay of Cadiz meets other travellers in a fun and friendly atmosphere.

Smoke in the air

We first noticed it the day before we visited the Cathedral in Seville. A little bit of a haze in the sky. It was worse the next day, and then yesterday it was actually quite bad. We think it's smoke from forest fires, and yet we can't find very much info on the news.

Yesterday was a badly needed day of rest. Although, you know us...we can't sit still for very long. In the morning, Tony went out with the girls for a walk around the town while I caught up on some computer work.

Everything went according to plan...and then some!

Wow...busy day yesterday. Sorry, this is going to be a long blog post! But, entirely worth it because you get to see what we saw.

We had a lot to accomplish. First, I wanted to go buy a new smart phone. Then, we were going to meet Helen and Tony where we would all tour the fantastic Seville Cathedral, then back to Louis the motorhome in order to head to the outskirts of town to do a big grocery shop, then a two hour drive to a small town in the mountains to an AirBnb accommodation where we will spend the next week.

Let's see how smoothly that all goes...

Shopping and exploring in Seville

We're not big on shopping.

While I don't mind shopping online, and we don't mind shopping for groceries, going shopping for anything else is not our idea of fun. But, we need a new smart phone, and to have to buy one while in Spain is a bit of a pain.

So in between exploring, if we came across a store that sold cell phones, Tony and I went inside.

Phone problems!

Yesterday, we drove across the Portugal border back into Spain. I hadn't mentioned it previously, but I've been having problems with the iPhone. This is an older model 4s that our son had donated to us when he upgraded.

It's been suiting our travel needs just fine until we arrived in Barcelona January 2nd and I tried it out with a local Spanish SIM card. At the time, I had to mess with some settings, and got it working. And when we crossed into Portugal, it worked fine there too for several days...until one day last week when it simply wouldn't connect to the internet, and then it wouldn't even receive a signal.

In the market for new luggage...

We're tossing around the idea of getting some new travel gear, and one of the websites we're looking at  is www.eaglecreek.com. Our old wheeled backpacks are still doing fine, but they're looking a little worse for wear. Also, new materials and new designs have made the new wheeled backpacks even lighter and more durable than what was available five years ago.

Given that we're doing more flying on discount airlines here in Europe, we need to be able to stay below their weight and size limits to avoid paying extra.

A much better day!

We didn't have a long drive planned, so before we hit the road we decided to search out the rocky coastline that we originally came to the Albufeira area for. Helen and Tony had checked their photos from when we were here ten years ago, and we managed to find the road that led down to the beach where the trail was.

The beach is called Praia dos Aveiros, and it's just a tiny beach, but it leads to the path taking you to a larger beach to the east.

Not one of our better days...

It was pretty much 10:30am by the time we left Salema Eco Camp and headed east. We had made a rough plan to drive as far as Albufeira. Not for the touristy town itself, but for the rocky cliffs that we remembered exploring when we were all here ten years ago.

But apparently our memories aren't very good!

Portugal's rocky Atlantic coast...

We took Louis for a drive yesterday to explore the Atlantic coast a little bit north of here. It's in the natural park area that takes up much of the south west coast of Portugal, so there are a lot of areas to hike and we were looking for a decent walk.

First, we stopped for fuel and put in just enough to get us back into Spain. Portugal fuel is about 10% more expensive. Ruth and Helen ran into the grocery store to pick up a couple of things, while Tony and I parked Louis across the road.

The seaside town of Salema, Portugal

It didn't turn out to be quite as nice as what they were calling for, but still a decent day and we did see some sunshine and blue sky, with temperatures of around 18C (65F). But it was a little bit windy too. Still, a nice day to go out exploring, so we walked down to the seaside town of Salema.

This is the second blog post today...if you missed it, you can see a tour of our friends Glen and Steve's motorhome here...

http://www.travelwithkevinandruth.com/2017/02/showing-you-another-european-motorhome.html

Showing you another European motorhome

There are a lot of differences between European motorhomes and American motorhomes.

Last month we showed you a short tour of what we're driving over here. Yesterday, our friends Glen and Steve opened their doors for us to be able to show you their motorhome. Instead of taking a bunch of pictures, I figured we'd do a couple of video clips.

We're taking a vacation!

We had to get to Faro airport by 9:30am or so to pick up Helen and Tony. We had been parked for the night only a half an hour away, so we planned to leave around 8:30am. But we had a lot of rain again overnight, and we were parked in an area that got quite soft when it was wet.

We were a little worried about getting out okay!

The campgrounds are busy!

Only about an hour's drive yesterday as we slowly headed down a mountain road towards Portugal's Algarve coast. We wanted to be somewhere close to Faro because we're picking up Ruth's cousin Helen and her husband Tony from Faro airport this morning.

We had a couple of campgrounds to check out in the hopes that they had decent bungalow accommodations available for Helen and Tony. Unlike last April when they visited us with Sherman in San Diego, we don't have room for them here to stay in Louis with us.

Well, at least we got out for a walk...

Woke up yesterday morning and it wasn't raining any longer. We had heard it on and off over night, and this was just a little break because they were calling for it to continue after lunch.

We took the chance of heading out for a walk and into the village of Ameixial, and ended up not getting too wet!