Tavira

From Porto we headed for the Algarve. We stopped in a town called Santarem, our first place with a big obvious bull-ring. It was initially a very ugly town, but we had a wee search for a cafe (more GCSE french coming in handy... it seems easier when everybody´s on their second language), on our way back to the clio we found a really nice plaza, some places just need a bit of searching out.
As we continued south we got overtaken by a van of Ukrainian surfers, and were in convoy with a van of Austrian surfers. Whilst they proved that we´d come a relatively little way compared to some, it got us wondering: how do they get into it? I´m sure the Black Sea can´t have good surf, and Austria doesn´t have a coastline...
As we crossed the hills into the Algarve the rain cleared and it was sun sun sun...
We settled on Tavira near the Spanish border for our beach part of Portugal. We got there and discovered the campsite was a short ferry ride away from the town and any roads. The town´s coast is protected by islands, with one main one; and the main beach is on the island. The campsite is on the beach, no cars allowed. So we had to have a re-package and work out what we could carry onto the ferry, and we were off to the beach.

So there was much beach lolling about done, and we took a great photo of a chameleon on the dunes ...
There were lots of boobies out for Ben to look at too (no photos though).

We did a very commendable impression of washer women one morning, and not only felt for the women of the Ganges, but determined to wear fewer clothes for longer.
Also, Ben realised his great calculations hadn´t entirely included travel time, so countries / towns need ditching. Morroco´s out, Hungary´s looking precarious, and we´ll visit fewer cities in Spain on our way to Valencia for the 5th America´s Cup race. We´ll just have to come back to places at some point in the future - too much world to see!