It’s a travel day. We’re taking the road toward Spain but stopping 50 kilometres before meeting the border in Olhão. We’re leaving from a costal town and going to another coastal town. If we were in a movie, we would be driving in a convertible along the coast with majestic vistas on both sides and a winding road following the curve of the coast in front of us for the nearly 100 kilometres between both towns. Sadly, life is not a movie, and neither are our vacations.
We started the day by packing our bags and heading for our last pancake breakfast at 📍Black & White. Our appointment to pick up our car from the car rental was at 12:00. They close at 12:30. We had a limited margin of error. We arrived at breakfast around 10:30 and were seated by 11:00. By 11:40, we were out of there fully fueled up and didn’t even rush. The staff at 📍Black & White run a very tight ship. By 11:55 we were at our appointment. There was a queue that ran to the outside of the building and three people running the counter. We expected it to be somewhat quick, but the inordinate amount of typing required for each rental and return got us to our car 45 minutes later. There was no James Bond moment where we just announce our name, and somebody gives us keys without asking questions. We were once again assigned an automatic larger SUV despite reserving a manual compact car. We were also shown the car in excruciating detail. It wasn’t Q briefing mister Bond about the secret weapons of the car; we’re talking “here’s the start button, it starts the car, here you have the door handle, use it to open the door, please don’t put diesel in the car, we know diesel pumps in America are green, but here it’s the gas that has green pumps. The huge thing, despite being recent, is that having everything controlled by a touchscreen doesn’t include adjustable seats (other than distance from the steering wheel and, strangely, the seat height). If there are ways to adjust them, we could not find them. The onboard manual is about as useful as the car rental guy informing us that an accelerator pedal makes the car go forward. Did you know that water is wet too?
We gave up on adjusting our seats and took to the road: mostly highways and mostly inland. We’re heading just behind the Faro airport. Why you might ask? There are wetlands behind the airport, and we found a trail that goes through the salt marsh where flamingoes are known to live year-round. The 📍Ludo trail is a surprisingly beautiful hiking area. The trail we picked runs about half its length along the local golf course (we didn’t know that when we chose it). The first half was along the marsh and filled with birds and not the “squint the right way and you might see the smudge all the way over there is a bird” or “you need a camera lens the size of a telescope to see that bird”; it was “take a picture with your iPhone because the birds are so close”. The proximity of the birds made Karine very happy. The second half was more about observing the golfers in their natural element. If we wanted to do that, we would have a subscription to the Golf Channel, not National Geographic. Had we known, we would have continued on the boardwalk through the marsh even if they had fewer birds. We followed the trail; got to meet a bunch of birds, enjoyed the warmth and, being right next to the airport, saw a bunch of planes on approach. Not a bad way to spend an afternoon.
After our walk, we stopped by the grocery store on our way to Olhão. Being right next to Faro (thus the Faro Airport), it took us very little time from off the trail to the grocery store and to our Airbnb. We have a small house with a very nice rooftop terrace. We set up there and enjoyed watching the sunset with wine and fruit.
Dinner was at 📍Chà Chà Chà. A relatively small restaurant that takes over almost two whole alleys. They served small plates, large plates and their homemade wine and spirits (including limoncello). The meal was succulent, the service hyper-friendly and attentive. The place was wonderful. While we’ll have to wait until our departure to call it, they are likely the winner of best restaurant in Olhão in our book.