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Carmel Brennan

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Saturday, March 18th, 2023

Saturday was a very relaxing day for me, just catching up in the morning with all the business to deal with Letters to the Earth project and other emails. Carol and Charlie went off on walks. Carol painted across the road at the cliffs and also back here in the barbeque area. Thereâ€™s a really…

March 19, 2023
Friday, March 17th , 2023

Happy St. Patrick’s Day Everyone: We ended up in a new town on Friday, Arrifana. I hadnâ€™t been here at all, but because Charlie was driving practicing his stick shift driving, which was really nice for me. We got a chance to go farther south. This town,Arrifana, is south of Aljezur and back at the…

March 18, 2023
Thursday, March 16, 2023

Thereâ€™s more areas that I wanted Carol and Charlie to see north of Zambujeira. Porto Covo, Malvao beach and Vila Nova De Milfontes were really important areas to see because theyâ€™re all quite different and different from what we saw the day before.First I took them to Porto Covo, a very small village with low…

March 17, 2023
Wednesday was a full day of touring around with Charlie and Carol. I first took them down to the town, Zambujeira Do Mar, just to see the way the streets are laid out and the access to different things, the grocery store, where the bakery is, my favourite restaurants and a few little shops . We had breakfast at Restaurante Rita, one of my favourite places overlooking the main cliff in town. We all had omelettes and fries and instead of having coffee, since it was closer to noon, we had pints of beer. That was fabulous. Restaurant Rita overlooks the cliffs at the edge of town and from the view, you can see the old church in town and the white washed houses. You can walk down to the beach – itâ€™s considered to be (Iâ€™m sure this is advertising) the best urban beach and of course the Rota Vincentina goes right through the town of Zambujeira. Even before we left the house, Charlie and Carol had had a little walk up the driveway and out to the coast to overlook the coast line along the north of the village. Itâ€™s a good way to get panoramic views over a lot of this area. I took them south of Zambujeira Do Mar beach to Alteirinhos beach,up a hill and down a hill from the town. It is a quieter beach away from the hustle and bustle of the village but, they do have a surfing school here, so Iâ€™m sure in August it is very busy . Itâ€™s in the valley and has a long narrow beach between the cliffs. We drove south to see the town of Azenha Do Mar, a natural fishing harbor. A lot of people in the 1960s, settled here and gathered seaweed and did fishing . If you look carefully, you can see stork’s nests on the rocks. After that, we headed north to the fishing the fishing village attached to Zambujeira. It is called Entrada Do Barca. Itâ€™s the one that, as you come down the road towards it, it has the two well known restaurants. Iâ€™ve been to one, O Sacas, many times and always have enjoyed my meal there. The other restaurant wasn’t open until this week. Before I had the car I walked there; now itâ€™s much easier to access. If you get to the harbour at 11 in the morning they have fish auctions during the week and a lot of the restaurants go to buy their fish. You can also see hikers coming down the steps on the one side of the cliffs to continue on south on the route of the Rota Vincentina. Since the tide was out we could walk out on the breaker wall and get a different view of the harbour. Ross had walked out there last week but he said it made him uncomfortable because, at that time, the tide was coming in. We went out to the end of the breaker wall and it really does give you different views of the cliffs as if you were out in a boat. After that, I took them up to Almograve to the very, very long beach there, to show them where I met the surfer and learned a little bit more about his sport. We walked to the beach. It happens to be one of my favourite spots after that we went up to Cabo Sardao, which is the beach with a lighthouse, this is the spot you watch the birds you can see the storks nesting on the cliffs and there are a lot of Perigrine falcons around. The lighthouse there was built back in 1915; it was open yesterday, but we didnâ€™t to her through Remax after that, We drove to Sao Tetonio to get groceries; Carol and Charlie wanted cheese, shrimp and olives and things like that, so thatâ€™s a good place to get them. At home Carol cooked a cauliflower soup. She only used half of the cauliflower; thereâ€™s more to bake today. We had a lovely meal and then watched four epsisodes of the Ted Lasso series that theyâ€™ve been following on Apple TV. It was a great day. Thursday I plan to take them to Vila Nova de Milfontes and some of the beaches around there that I really am attached to. I do feel like a permanent resident here; I know my ways around the roads now as if I am at home.

March 16, 2023
Tuesday,March 14th, 2023

Iâ€™ve spent a really relaxing day again today. I know Iâ€™ll be running around for the next 16 days with Carol and Charlie but thatâ€™s OK. Iâ€™m quite happy to do that. Today I was just making the beds, going out and getting some groceries and of course, I forgot and stuff so Iâ€™m waiting…

March 15, 2023
Monday, March 13th, 2023

Itâ€™s been an odd day for weather today. Although temperature was around 17 or 18 degrees, it was overcast. Actually at one point there was a sprinkle of rain. I had left the sheets out on the line overnight because they werenâ€™t quite dry last night and, of course they got wet again, so now…

March 14, 2023
Sunday, March 12th, 2023

The last few hours with visitors and the mystery of the green crocs, size 5! I got up early although, I had slept a good long eight hours. I wanted to get my blog finished because I didnâ€™t get it done last night with all the conversation. And I was really quite tired and I…

March 12, 2023
Saturday, March 11th,2023

The morning began with a good breakfast and then the plan was to cover as much ground as possible on their last full day in Portugal. We headed south to go to Odeceixe, the amazingly wide beach that has a river running into it.The countryside around the town is large rolling hills. It is the…

March 12, 2023
Friday, March 10, 2023

We had a relaxing start to our day. I was up early. Then Ross got up and finally, Irene woke up. She hadnâ€™t slept most of the night. She said she only got to sleep around 5:30 am and sheâ€™s really tired today to the point that she’s falling asleep as I drive through some…

March 10, 2023
Thursday, March 9th,2023

Itâ€™s 7:30 in the morning. Iâ€™ve been up for a bit doing dishes and just getting my tea made and of course getting cat food out for the newly wed felines. It wass a windy night but the temperature is going up to over 19 today. Itâ€™s quite overcast and a little rainy. BC and…

March 9, 2023

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