How do you go about deciding where to pick up with blogging again when you have a backlog of over a year of travel? You could create a detailed posting schedule or...you could just open up your photos folder and see what pops out at you. Let's go with that.
And that haphazard approach is appropriate here, because this long-weekend trip to Portugal came about in the same under-planned way.
Labor Day for Graham was a four-day weekend (a "96" in milspeak) and as it was approaching, we casually decided we would go somewhere in the Algarve, the southern region of Portugal, along the coast. It's only a few hours by car, we'd been before, it's generally affordable, the beaches are pretty, the food is a nice change from Spanish cuisine, and we could take the dogs with us. We let that non-specific decision hang until two days before the weekend started when we realized that we'd probably need, you know, a place to stay. Cue furious searching on booking.com.
I set my sights on popular Lagos and came up short. Expanding the search to surrounding towns, a room in I-have-never-heard-of-this-place-before Carvoeiro popped up that seemed like a steal. Click, click, booked.
Off to Carvoeiro we went! And we were happy to find that our procrastination hadn't cost us a great weekend. Our hastily booked accommodation overlooked the beach as promised and we had a giant terrace that dwarfed our somewhat tiny, but typically-sized European room. The town was charming and to top it off was celebrating their patron saint that weekend. Bustling holiday atmosphere, concerts in the town square, religious processions, quirky traditions, and fireworks commence!
