Report on a visit

To visit the south of Portugal by car is fantastic and also economical, but probably it is not the best choice to do it in April. In fact one of the most attractive things of the Algarve are the beaches and with a such unstable weather, as the type I found during those Easter holidays, it was impossible to enjoy the landscape completely. The funniest thing was that while driving it was hot with a brilliant sun in a limpid blue sky, every times we got out of the car it began to rain.
Here in Portugal to rent a car is very cheap: for six days it will cost 180€. If you plan to leave with some friends, for example five, it is only 36€ each. If you don't find a place to sleep you can also sleep in the car, as we did the first night, but five people in the same vehicle is horrific! The following morning I woke up totally numb. In addition, there are places in Alentejo and Algarve that are reachable only with the car, as for example the natural reserve of Arrabida. It is not far from Lisbon, only half an hour by car.
It was precisely this place, the first stage of the journey along the Portugal coast: the beach of Portinho da Arrabida. It is completely surrounded by the natural reserve, there are only three houses and nothing else. It is a real paradise!
Another place like this is the peninsula of Troy, also this beach is a protected area. Now it is completely unexploited in fact if you do a morning walk on the beach you can find living starfish. My friends and I saved a lot of them trapped in the sand because of the low tide. In fact they arrive on the shore with the high tide and the following morning with the low tide they can't reach the water and die. So during your walk on the beach you can collect a lot of dried starfish. Unfortunately, now a resort is under construction and within one year the area will be completely put upside down.
However, the best reef of all was the one of Porto Covo: it seems a cross between an Irish cliff and a Californian beach. Really impressive! It is a perfect place to do some aquatic sports such as Kite Surfing, Surfing and Water Skiing.
During a journey like this one you meet a lot of curious characters. For example in Albufeira, a little tourist city near Faro, we met a very strange man. He was Portuguese but he spoke a perfect Italian with a typical accent of the south, because he worked with an Italian man of Naples. It was really strange but funny to hear him speaking. When he discovered that we didn't have a place to sleep he accompanied us to an hotel and thanks to him we had a discount of 30%. He was our guide in the city which is particularly beautiful in the evening. There are a lot of bars, small pubs with live music etc...but the beach is horrible with some concrete buildings that ruin the beauty of the historic centre.
The trip was supposed to end in Vila Real de Santo Antonio, the town on the mouth of the river Guadiana, at the border with Spain. But at the very last moment we decided to cross the border and leap to Seville. It was not so easy to find a hostel to spend there the last night of our journey but at least we succeeded, even if we had to share the rooms with other people we didn't know! Seville is really beautiful but the traffic is the worst thing: all the people use the turn signal but instead of waiting their turn they simply change lane....we risked an accident a lot of times!
You should definitely try this kind of journey!

Valentina Pecori